This photograph of Benjamin L. Smith in uniform is inscribed "Camp Jackson, 1917-1918," and was taken while he served in the U.S. Army during World War I, from 1917 to 1919. While serving, he received the rank of captain.
Photograph of Benjamin L. Smith
Benjamin Lee Smith was born February 6, 1893 in, Caldwell County, N.C. He received his A.B. from Duke University in 1916, and his M.A. from Duke in 1937. He served as superintendent of schools in the western North Carolina cities of Forest City, Rutherford-Spindale, and Shelby before assuming the same position in Greensboro, N.C., in 1935. His twenty-three year tenure in Greensboro included the years immediately following the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision ordering desegregation of public schools. In 1959, he participated in the National Civil Rights hearing on school integration. Smith died in 1961. Ben L. Smith High School in Greensboro is named for him.
1940
Greensboro (N.C.)
1940-1949
still image
photographs
Segregation in education--United States Race relations
North Carolina African-American History
Primary and secondary education School desegregation, 1954-1958
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ IN COPYRIGHT. This item is subject to copyright. Contact the contributing institution for permission to reuse.
Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University
Benjamin Lee Smith Papers Civil Rights Greensboro
LSTA grant administered by the North Carolina State Library -- http://statelibrary.ncdcr.gov/ld/grants/lsta.html
Duke_RL.01210.0963
duke:75
884367602
