LEWISTON – Rosa Parks was eighth-grader Brianna May’s favorite.

Rakeem Turcotte liked Abraham Lincoln.

Several girls gave admiring stares at Samantha Smith’s portrait.

A few feet away, Tom Hird studied Dwight Eisenhower.

“I like how he’s blended all the colors. You can tell he’s a serious man from the picture,” Hird said of artist Robert Shetterly’s “Americans Who Tell the Truth” portraits. Hird said he found Eisenhower’s life compelling. “I liked how he was in the Army. He made a difference.”

On Wednesday, Lewiston Middle School students were bused to the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College to study portraits – and the people – Shetterly has painted.

The 38 portraits are part of the middle school’s year-long focus on art, literacy, diversity and culture. All 750 students will view the paintings this week.

The overriding lesson, teachers said, is to help students understand why they should stand up for what they believe. People in Shetterly’s paintings did that and made changes. But that can be painful, said American history teacher Dave Martel said. “You have to be prepared to take the consequences of your action.”

As part of the lesson, students watched a film about Rosa Parks refusing to give up her bus seat because she was black.

Eighth-graders were stunned to learn that black people had to sit in the back of buses in the South, Martel said. They did not know schools, public restrooms and water fountains were segregated.

“They said, ‘This can’t be. This is America!'” Martel said. “America 60 years ago was a different place than it is today.” It changed, he said, because of people who stood up for their beliefs.

L-A College curator Robyn Holman showed students how Shetterly’s subjects were painted at different angles, how up close they could see blue, orange and green flecks of color on faces and clothing. “When you stand away, your eye blends it all together,” Holman said.

She also showed students how Shetterly scratched into the paint the names of people and quotes. Painting the words would have given a softer look; scratching the words in gave them more energy and directness, Holman said.

Eighth-grader Rakeem Turcotte liked the details of Abraham Lincoln’s painting, and how Lincoln freed the slaves.

Turcotte said his father’s side of the family is black. If Lincoln had not done what he did, slavery would have lingered. “I’m grateful to him,” Turcotte said.

Kristina Lafrance and Marissa Deschaine admired a painting of child peace activist Samantha Smith of Maine, who became a celebrity after writing to Soviet President Yuri Andropov asking if he was going to wage nuclear war.

“She changed how people should look at war,” Lafrance said.

“She’s a role model,” Deschaine said. “She was against war and she stood up for kids everywhere. She started out as a little kid, and boom, she’s this huge hero. That’s amazing.”

Students said the paintings offered lessons in courage.

“You want to fit in; you worry about what people think,” said Tori Denis. The exhibit tells kids, “It’s OK to show yourself,” she said.