Mary T. Smith was born into a tenant farming family in the American “Deep South.” A significant hearing impairment, unrecognized by those around her who assumed she had a form of mental retardation, often left her isolated. She nevertheless continued school and reached the equivalent of sixth grade—a remarkable achievement in a region where young African Americans without disabilities typically left school at the end of middle school. After a life of labor as a domestic worker for white families in a still-segregated Deep South, and several short-lived marriages, she found some stability and settled in Hazlehurst, Mississippi. There, she raised her only son while remaining on the outskirts of the community: “I don’t go anywhere anymore, I can’t hear anything, I have everything I need. My church. The Lord Jesus.”
Upon retirement, Smith began painting representations of Christ as well as portraits of those around her, sometimes revealing a resemblance to Byzantine icons. She also created large, often messianic slogans which she inscribed on pieces of sheet metal and displayed in her garden like billboards.