No words can describe the pain, injustice and ultimate triumph of the human spirit during the Jim Crow South.

But Johnnie Lee Gray’s paintings can.

Gray — whose 35-piece body of work is on display through May 26 at the Chicago Historical Society — was a self-taught painter who candidly captured the climate and everyday life of a pre-civil rights movement United States.

Gray’s unique vantage point lends his work a personal touch and an authoritative voice; born into a family of sharecroppers, he worked in the fields of his native Spartanburg, S.C., and attended inferior, segregated schools.

After graduating from high school, he served in Vietnam for 18 months and then returned to the South to work in textile mills and as a carpenter. At 37, Gray taught himself to paint. The rest, of course, is history.

Gray’s paintings tell the story of the periphery — a society where segregation was law and racism the social norm. Yet Gray’s work — created through both childhood memories and more recent experiences — also exposes the other side of the Jim Crow era, exploring the promise of change in the South and the impact of family, social activities and the church on African-American solidarity. “Colored Night at the Fair,” for example, illustrates aspects of a black community at play.

Through the use of vivid colors and bold, well-blended strokes, Gray’s paintings express a spirit evocative of a past that refuses to be restricted by the Jim Crow experience.

“Rising Above Jim Crow: The Paintings of Johnnie Lee Gray” is on display at the Chicago Historical Society (Clark St. at North Ave.) nyou