"The True Grinnelian" returns to campus
On Thursday, October 28, 2021, Edith Renfrow Smith and her daughter, Alice Frances Smith, returned to Grinnell College for the opening of "The True Grinnellian: An exhibition to honor Edith Renfrow Smith '37." Curated by Feven Getachew '24, the exhibition included 12 enlarged photographs from Mrs. Renfrow Smith's family album. In addition, three display cases housed images of Mrs. Renfrow Smith from her 1932 Grinnell High School and 1934 Grinnell College yearbooks, as well as a certificate signed by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin of his July 2021 Congressional Record tribute to her.
Students, faculty, staff, and community members eagerly took in the visual display of Mrs. Renfrow Smith's life in powerful images.
The exhibition set the stage for the official re-dedication of the Edith Renfrow Smith '37 Student Art Gallery and the installation of a new plaque written by Feven Getachew '24. In addition to providing a biography of the namesake, the plaque connects Edith Renfrow Smith's values to the gallery space:
The Edith Renfrow Smith '37 Student Art Gallery is a space for Grinnell's past and present. With floorboards taken from the old Darby Gym, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., addressed the campus in 1967, the Gallery is a tribute to Edith’s love of the arts and encourages students to engage in self-expression in the service of inclusive community and social justice.
In her remarks, Ms. Getachew explained her reference to Edith Renfrow Smith as "The True Grinnellian":
I believe all Grinnellians try to uphold at least five core values during their time as students and beyond. Those values are compassion, modesty, helpfulness, optimism, and civic mindedness.... Edith Renfrow Smith is one of the Grinniellians who has embodied the core values, and she continues to carry them beyond Grinnell, into the world. I am inspired by her accomplishments and contributions to the communities she lives in whether it is here in Grinnell or in Chicago. I aspire to reiterate her legacy, and for this reason, I organized 'The True Grinnellian' exhibition.
As she opened the re-dedication, Dr. Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant, the Louise R. Noun chair in Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies, addressed Mrs. Renfrow Smith's significance and legacy as a Grinnellian:
We all know and celebrate you for paving a way where none existed. You are the first, and you have made it possible for so many others to imagine themselves here.
President Anne Harris spoke to Mrs. Renfrow Smith's place in the College's collective biography.
I invite us all today, to dedicate ourselves to ... understand, to feel, and to honor the impact of Mrs. Renfrow Smith’s legacy, and the centrality of Black student experience, in the history of Grinnell..... All of us gathered today, all of us who walk through this meaningful space, are delegates of the legacy of Mrs. Renfrow Smith. May that be an honored and cherished responsibility for all of us.
With her characteristic warmth, grace, and humor, Mrs. Renfrow Smith engaged many attendees in intergenerational conversations about life and being Grinnellians. Read accounts of her visit in the Scarlet & Black campus newspaper and the Alumni News.
