BMA 1990.42

This picture portrays the painful and ugly events which occurred in the aftermath of the 1954 Supreme Court decision known as "Brown versus Board of Education." This landmark decision required that public schools throughout the nation be integrated by race. Up until 1954, public schools in seventeen southern and border states (including Maryland) were segregated by law. White children went to schools where all the children were white; black children went to schools where all the children were black. A black child who lived close to a "white school" was not allowed to enroll there. The 1954 Supreme Court decision stated that this system must come to an end.

The majority of white Southerners accepted the Supreme Court decision quietly whether they favored it or not. Some, however, exploded with rage. For them, integration was unthinkable. They resented the Supreme Court telling the people of their state what to do. Like the man in the picture holding the "NEVER" sign, they tried everything they could think of to make sure integration would never come about. In this picture we see that a mob of furious people is lashing out at the seven black schoolchildren who have arrived for their first day at school - a school which was previously for white children only. We see a Klansman in his Ku Klux Klan hood and a man wielding a billy club. Other men carry a knife, a gun, a Corn liquor bottle. There is no kindness in any of their faces.

Across the country, black and white people alike were horrified to see news photographs of belligerent, hysterical mobs terrorizing innocent children in city after city across the South.

"Here were grown men and women furiously confronting their enemy: two, three, and half-dozen scrubbed, starched, scared and incredibly brave colored children. The moral bankruptcy, the shame of the thing, was evident."

The artist, Vincent Smith, attended an integrated school in Brooklyn, New York. As a young man, he spent some time in the South, first as a nineteen year-old enlisted man in the Army, then briefly again in 1960 when the Civil Rights Movement was underway. Deeply affected by the turmoil, he sought to express the tension and upheaval in this etching, First Day of School.

Smith expresses the tension with sketchy, roughly drawn lines, in keeping with the unruly atmosphere. His composition, divided down the middle by an empty white space speaks of the "utter lack of communication between white and Negro communities. They had been estranged for so long that they had no idea what was in the other's mind - or how to find out."

The faces of the mob appear to be caricatures of meanness and stupidity, a fitting illustration of Martin Luther King's words: "...Hate is always tragic. It is as injurious to the hater as it is to the hated. It distorts the personality and scars the soul."

In contrast, the little schoolchildren and their crossing guard are depicted with the sweetness and innocence of a story-book illustration, like a picture from a book they might learn to read in school. These children were true pioneers of desegregation, unwittingly helping others to find courage, and in Dr. King's words, "a new sense of somebodyness" and self-respect.

Vincent Smith's interest in art began with a visit to The Museum of Modern Art in New York to see an exhibition of paintings by Paul Cézanne.

"I came away so moved with a feeling that I had been in touch with something sacred. For a year afterward I haunted the libraries reading everything I could get my hands on about art, literature, philosophy, religion, existentialism - you name it - I touched on it somewhere."

He resigned from his job as a Post Office worker, began to study art at the Art Students League, and met other painters.

"We were a strange group because people didn't know what to make of us...Most people I came in contact with never knew a black painter nor had they hardly ever heard of one.... But we hung out and we hung in, in lofts and cold water flats.... We were young pioneers on the brink of new discoveries. The juices were flowing. We were going to be the movers and the shakers. We went through the hallowed halls of these museums...and we didn't see anything reflect the black experience or black contribution to American culture. We knew that we were going to be scorned and ridiculed. We also knew that our achievements were going to have to take, not rage, but knowledge and skill and scholarship and long years of dedication. Every fiber in our bodies was alive, man! We were open to the whole bit.

You have to remember, this was before the Brown School decision, before the black tennis, football and basketball stars. No kidding. We were entering onto sacred ground. There were no black art historians, blacks with PHD's were unheard of. Few blacks taught art in colleges in the North; there were no publications about black visual arts. There were only about four or five galleries open to us.... Yet we painted up a storm!..."

Background Information on 1954 Supreme Court Decision

Before 1954, public schools in the South had been segregated for so many years that many white people found it extraordinarily difficult to accept the idea of integrated schools. They had been brought up to believe that the system of segregated schools was entirely fair and acceptable. Since 1896, the law had always allowed school districts to provide separate schools for black and white children as long as all the schools were of equal quality. Even though the requirement for equality often went unenforced, most Southern whites believed that the system of "separate but equal" schools was best for everyone.

It was readily apparent to many black parents and civil-rights groups, however, that the schools for black children were not as well equipped, maintained, or staffed as the schools for white children. They were also concerned that many black children were growing up believing that they were not "good enough" to associate with white children.

In 1954, the Supreme Court decided that the doctrine of "separate-but-equal" schooling must come to an end. Chief Justice Earl Warren of the Supreme Court wrote:

"To separate [the black children] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone... We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

The Court required that plans to desegregate the schools "begin with all deliberate speed." Many districts, including Baltimore, quickly abandoned segregation in all its schools. Other districts dragged their feet. Some districts openly defied the new law, hoping that if people resisted vehemently enough, the Supreme Court would be forced to rescind its decision.

In fact, the opposite was true. As time went on, more and more people across the country began to understand that the civil rights protesters in the South had a just cause. Before long, concerned people found the courage to protest other injustices and right other wrongs. By 1964, school integration, bus and lunch counter boycotts, and voter registration drives had changed the face of the South forever.

Note:
Although First Day of School does not refer directly to a particular event in Birmingham, the small figure in the middle of the street who carries the NEVER sign bears a strong resemblance to "Bull" Connor, the Police Commissioner of Birmingham, Alabama. In May of 1963, Connor ordered the Birmingham police to disperse black freedom marchers with snarling police dogs and high-pressure hoses.

Reference: Portrait of a Decade: The Second American Revolution by Anthony Lewis and The New York Times. New York: Random House, 1964. A first-hand account of the struggle for Civil Rights from 1954-1964.