Smith traveled in the South in 1963–64, observing this resistance firsthand. In the tradition of artists such as Honoré Daumier, James Ensor, George Grosz, and Thomas Nast, Smith here satirized and condemned a mob jeering young, black students who are escorted by police to school. The exaggerated features of the menacing figures imply their crudity and cruelty. Rather than individualizing the participants, Smith’s distortions render them part of an inchoate, unthinking mass, which includes drunkards, a man in Klu Klux Klan garb, and a saluting figure with a strong resemblance to Adolf Hitler. The mob is led by a man in a suit holding a paper or sign stating “never.” Perhaps he is meant to suggest politicians such as George Wallace and Orval Faubus, who capitalized on racist fears to advance their own careers. Smith’s indignation at those who tried to block racial equality is expressed clearly and forcefully in First Day of School. (MF)

Vincent Smith was born in Brooklyn, New York, where he continues to reside. In the 1950s, he attended New York’s Art Students League, the Brooklyn Museum Art School, and the Skowhegan School in Maine. This enabled him to study with social realists Reginald Marsh and Ben Shahn, among others. Smith’s expressionistic paintings and prints focus on contemporary African American life, often in an insistently political fashion. According to the artist, “What I hope to achieve is for black kids to go into a museum and see what they can relate to. . . . I can’t go into the Museum of Modern Art and see Malcolm X, so I paint Malcolm X. . . . The spirit of Malcolm X.” 22

First Day of School savagely caricatures savage actions––those of racists determined to maintain segregated schools. Since the historic desegregation case Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka (1954), the introduction of African American students into formerly all-white schools has been a fundamental issue in the struggle for civil rights. Although desegregation was ordered by the Supreme Court with “all deliberate speed,” it was bitterly and sometimes violently resisted by those determined to maintain racist institutions. Federal marshals were still required to protect children in integrated schools ten years after the ruling.