HISTORIC REMEMBRANCES
Oviedo Colored Schools Museum by J. Lajuana Miller
A conversation with Judith Smith is like opening a history book. Judith D. Smith is President of the Board of Directors for the Historic Oviedo Colored Schools Museum, Inc. (HOCSM - formerly the Historic Jamestown Colored School Museum, Inc.). The purpose of this organization is to: preserve African American history in Seminole and Orange Counties, supplement the Black History education provided to students in the Seminole and Orange County Public Schools, provide a site for community organizations to convene for purposes of enhancing the lives of the residents of Seminole and Orange Counties, increase community awareness of the historical existence, significance, and effectiveness of colored schools, and conduct cultural enrichment and historically significant programming. Its primary objective is to restore one of the last remaining former colored school buildings into a museum. They couldn’t have chosen a better person to lead them. Judith was born in Sanford because the closest hospital was there. She was raised in Oviedo. Her paternal grandfather came to the area in the 1900s. Her grandfather received a patent from the federal government to own land, and he was given 80 acres. Her family began homesteading the 80 acres. During that time, there was a school for “colored” students called the Little Red Schoolhouse. It was where her mother went to school. Her mother graduated from high school at Florida A & M University because there was no high school for Blacks. Students went to Tallahassee and boarded with families to attend high school. In 1897, the Robert Hungerford Normal and Industrial
Left to right: Harriet Brown Birk AME Episcopal Diocese Attorney, HOCSM Board Members: Kelley Muller-Smith, Vice President, Judith Dolores Smith, President, Gracia Muller Miller, Secretary, Dr. James Gavin, Representing the Assistant Treasurer Dr. Annie Jackson Gavin, Missing Board Member Arthur B. Davis, Treasurer
School was established in Eatonville, founded by Professor and Mrs. Russell C. Calhoun. It was a premier high school for Blacks. One of Judith’s cousins graduated from that school in 1930, and her sister graduated from there in 1966. In order for her sister to attend Hungerford, her mother arranged for her to board (live) with a teacher. Her brothers, because they were boys and didn’t need as much “looking after,” attended Crooms High School in Sanford. In 1967, Oviedo High School was desegregated, and Judith graduated from there in 1972. Efforts to establish a museum were initiated in 2001, when a reunion was held of students who had attended the colored schools. Gracia Miller (a board member) and Gloria Godwin conceptualized and organized the reunion. Judith had just completed doing genealogical research for my family, so she volunteered to work on the history of the school. She didn’t want the reunion to just be a group of people getting together. She wanted to legitimize the reunion and have a record of what the group was doing. She started to collect anything related to the colored schools, of which there were six in Oviedo. She conducted research at the Seminole County School Board, the City of Oviedo, and the Seminole County
Historical Society. Since her mom had been a teacher, Judith found a lot of historical information her mother had saved. She needed more, so she went to the community. She put the word out that she needed photos or anything people had. She had a computer but didn’t have enough space to save everything she had, so she went to Kinko’s and copied each picture. The staff at Kinko’s showed her how to put together a document, and she had it photocopied. It was a short booklet with photos and history that she researched from her sources. In 2014, another reunion was held, and attendees brought more information. Around 2018, the structure in Jamestown, which had been both a school and a church owned by the St. James AME Church, was damaged by a hurricane. There was a hole in the roof. For six months, Judith drove by it and wondered, “Why doesn’t someone fix that hole?” Then a voice in her head said, “Why don’t you fix it?” That began the journey of restoring the building in Jamestown as the site for the Historic Jamestown Colored School Museum. Judith contacted the AME church diocese, who owned the building and asked: 1) if she could cover the hole, 2) if a group could work to save the building,
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