'Poster child' of traveling exhibit from Danville

Credit: Submitted photo
History

This 1957 photo of Danville native Paula Martin Smith has become the face of an effort to gather oral histories statewide of experiences people had during the desegregation of public schools.

By: Denice Thibodeau | GoDanRiver
Published: October 28, 2012

Danville’s Paula Martin Smith was conference in Lynchburg not long ago, browsing some of the booths set up by various agencies to hand out information.

Smith said she got to the AARP’s table and a flyer caught her eye, one that invited people who had gone through the desegregation of public schools in Virginia to tell their stories for an oral history project.

“I thought, ‘I’d really like to participate in this,’” she said.

Then she turned to the second page of the flyer and staring back at her was … herself, in a photograph taken when she was 10 years old.

“I can’t even describe the feeling at the time,” Smith said.

Smith said she learned that the school desegregation oral history project is collaboration between Old Dominion University, which is hosting the project; Virginia NAACP; AARP; the Urban League of Hampton Roads Inc.; DOVE (Desegregation of Virginia Education) and several other agencies and colleges, all working to collect local oral histories and artifacts from that time.

She arranged to meet with Sonia Yaco, the special collections librarian and university archivist at Old Dominion University, in Lynchburg to tell her story.

Smith said she arrived at the traveling exhibit/oral collection site only to be greeted by … herself, again — only this time in a huge poster.

“It must have been 10 feet tall,” she said, still amazed.

Smith, a member of the board of directors of the Danville Historical Society, said she knew she had to bring the exhibit to Danville and encourage people to add their memories to the project.

“When I found out I was the poster child for the project, I said I had to bring it to Danville,” Smith laughed.

Yaco said she was amazed, too, when they learned who their “poster child” was.

The photo was one the NAACP had, but could not identify, Yaco said. They decided to use it for their promotional pieces because the little girl looked strong rather than like a victim, though she did make you wonder “who would ever want deny anything to such a sweet little girl,” Yaco said.

The idea, Yaco said, was to use this anonymous child to motivate people to tell their story — a kind of “we don’t know her story, so tell us yours” effort.

Yaco, who is the co-founder and co-chair of DOVE, said she was astonished when the AARP emailed her and said they had not only learned who the child was, she was still living in Danville.

“Then I met her and she is everything we thought she’d be,” Yaco said.

The photo actually debuted in a 1957 newspaper article, Smith said, after her father — Maceo Conrad Martin, former president of First State Bank and active in the NAACP and the Civil Rights movement — bought her the first youth life membership in the NAACP.

Smith did not forget the idea that long-lost photo sparked: the exhibit is coming to Danville in November.

“School Desegregation: Learn, Preserve and Empower” will be at the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History from Nov. 6-Dec. 14. On Nov. 10, from 3 to 6 p.m., there will be a reception and program that will include Yaco being on hand to take oral histories.

The reception is free to visitors; normal museum admissions will be charged during the rest of the run of the exhibit.

C.B. Maddox, the volunteer services coordinator at the museum, said appointments must be made to tell oral histories.

“We’ll be taking them at the reception and during the run of the exhibit,” Maddox said.

Maddox can be reached at (434) 793-5644 or by email at cb@danvillemuseum.org.