Biographical information on Benjamin L. Smith

Smith, Benjamin Lee (Creator)

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.

1955

Greensboro (N.C.)

1950-1959

text

reports

Segregation in education--United States
Race relations

North Carolina
African-American History

Primary and secondary education
School desegregation, 1954-1958

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Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University

Benjamin Lee Smith Papers
Civil Rights Greensboro

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Duke_RL.01210.0961

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