Additions to Black History in Fort Smith Exhibit

Fort Smith Museum of History

Additions to Black History in Fort Smith Exhibit
February 2015

In celebration of Black History Month, the Fort Smith Museum of History will add new faces to the Black History in Fort Smith exhibit.  Learn the stories of Dr. Harry P. McDonald, Sebastian County Deputy Sheriff Donald J. Talley, his friend George Hudgens and Crawford County educator Linda Sloan Norwood.

Harry Pelot McDonald, M. D. began family practice in Fort Smith in 1949 and served as family physician to nearly all African Americans in western Arkansas and many in eastern Oklahoma.  In 1952, he had the distinction of being the first black physician admitted to the Sebastian County Medical Society and the Arkansas State Medical Society.  For over a decade, Dr. McDonald served as president of the Fort Smith NAACP where one of his most important achievements was the integration of the Fort Smith public school system.  He was appointed to the Arkansas State Board of Education in 1978 by Governor David Pryor, and reappointed in 1987 by then Governor Bill Clinton.  In the summer of 2014, a bench was dedicated to Dr. Harry P. McDonald at the Elm Grove Community Center in Fort Smith.   

The exhibit may be viewed on the second floor of the museum.