ART Exhibition focuses on historic Storer College

Stories of Storer College students are the inspiration for an art exhibit, “Portraits of Persistence,” hosted by the Shepherd University Scarborough Library from Feb. 28 to April 1. A presentation about the exhibit and the college, which opened in Harpers Ferry after the Civil War and educated students from 1867 to 1955, will be at 7 p.m. March 7 in the Library’s Reading Room. During the presentation, artist Rhonda Smith, retired professor of art, and Dawne Raines Burke, professor of education, will discuss Storer’s history and its contribution to the American experience.

Following the Civil War, those freed from slavery were allowed to seek out an education. Recognizing a need, the Freedmen’s Bureau, a federal agency tasked with assisting newly freed slaves, and the Freewill Baptists of New England established Storer in 1865 as a one-room elementary school. Maine philanthropist John Storer contributed a $10,000 grant to the school, which offered an education “to both sexes without regard to race or color.” In 1906, the predecessor to the NAACP, the Niagara Movement, met at Storer.

The artwork by Smith featured in “Portraits of Persistence” includes 12 linoleum print portraits of six students who attended Storer in the early 1900s. The portraits represent two unidentified students, one male and one female, and students Julia E. Allston, 1923; Louise V. Hicks, 1906; Rose Thompson, 1900; and William D. Johnson 1904.