Maxine Smith
Maxine Smith | |
---|---|
Born | (1929-10-31)October 31, 1929 Memphis, Tennessee, United States |
Died | April 26, 2013(2013-04-26) (aged 83) |
Burial place | Elmwood Cemetery, Memphis |
Alma mater | Spelman College, Middlebury College |
Occupation(s) | Academic, school board official |
Organization | National Association for the Advancement of Colored People |
Known for | American Civil Rights Movement |
Spouse(s) | Vasco A. Smith, Jr. |
Children | One |
Maxine (Atkins) Smith (October 31, 1929 — April 26, 2013) born in Memphis, Tennessee, United States, was an academic, civil rights activist, and school board official.[1][2]
Smith's leadership in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and her involvement with educational planning at both the local and state levels in Tennessee, enabled her to support the American Civil Rights Movement and advance school desegregation.
Personal life and education
Smith was the youngest of three children of Joseph and Georgia Rounds Atkins.[1] In 1945, at age 15, Smith graduated Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis. She earned a bachelor's degree in biology from Spelman College in Atlanta in 1949, and a master's degree in French from Middlebury College in Vermont.[1]
In 1955 she married Vasco A. Smith, Jr., a dentist, civil rights leader, and the first black county commissioner in Memphis.[1][3][4] Smith gave birth to a son in 1956.[1]
Career and civil rights involvement
Smith became assistant professor of French at Prairie View A&M University in Prairie View, Texas, and then at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida.[1] Smith then taught briefly at LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis, Tennessee.[1]
In 1957, Smith applied to pursue graduate studies at the University of Memphis, but was denied admission because she was black.[1][2][5] This led Smith to become involved with the Memphis Branch of the NAACP. In 1962, Smith was named Executive Secretary of the branch, and continued in that role until her retirement in 1995.[1]
In 1960, Smith assisted in desegregating Memphis public schools, and in 1961 Smith personally escorted the first 13 black children to their new desegregated schools.[2][5] Through her leadership with the Memphis NAACP, Smith advocated for civil rights by organizing sit-ins, marches, lawsuits, voter registration drives, and student boycotts such as the "If You're Black, Take It Back" campaign to boycott downtown stores which had segregated water fountains and work forces.[2][5]
In 1968, Smith served on the coordinating committee of the Memphis sanitation strike, an event which brought Martin Luther King Jr. to the city, where he was assassinated on April 4.[2]
In 1971, Smith was the first African-American elected to the Memphis Board of Education, a position she held until her retirement in 1995.[1][2] Smith advocated for the promotion of school principal W. W. Herenton to the role of school superintendent in 1978, the first African-American to hold that position in Memphis. Smith later supported Herenton's successful bid to become mayor of Memphis.[2][5]
In 1991, Smith was elected president of the Memphis Board of Education, a role she served for two terms, retiring in 1995.[1][2][5] In 1994, Tennessee Governor Ned McWherter appointed Smith to the Tennessee Board of Regents, the governing body for many public colleges and universities throughout the state.[1]
Honors and recognition
Smith was presented with a Freedom Award by the National Civil Rights Museum in 2003, and awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters by her alma mater, Spelman College, in 2004.[1]
Smith was featured in the 2008 documentary about the Civil Rights Movement, The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306.[2]
Smith was featured in The Memphis 13[6] documentary.
Death
Smith had a number of health issues, and underwent heart surgery in 2012. She died April 26, 2013, at age 83, and was buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis.[7] Congressman Steve Cohen commented:
Maxine Smith was the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement in Memphis, having served on the National Board of the NAACP and as the Executive Secretary of the Memphis Branch of the NAACP where she coordinated the desegregation of everything in Memphis from schools to lunch counters to theater seating, and libraries, as well as public accommodations and facilities. Maxine Smith was an unstoppable force during the Civil Rights Movement, not only in Memphis but across America.[8]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Maxine A. Smith NAACP Collection". Digital Library of Georgia. Retrieved October 29, 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Maxine Smith". The HistoryMakers. Retrieved October 29, 2016.
- ^ DeCosta-Willis, Miriam (2008). Notable Black Memphians. Cambria Press. p. 280. ISBN 9781621968634.
- ^ Farrell, Paul (April 26, 2013). "Civil Rights Icon Dr. Maxine Smith Dies: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know". Heavy.com.
- ^ a b c d e Baker, Jackson (April 26, 2013). "Maxine Smith, Civil Rights Icon, Dead at 83". Memphis Flyer.
- ^ "The Memphis 13 – The Story of the Civil Rights Movement's Smallest Pioneers". Retrieved 2022-10-04.
- ^ Clark, Kym; Madden, Ursula (26 April 2013). "Civil Rights Activist Maxine Smith Dies". WMC Actionnews 5. Retrieved October 29, 2016.
- ^ Smith, Steve (April 26, 2013). "Cohen on Passing of Civil Rights Pioneer Maxine Smith". Congressman Steve Cohen.
- v
- t
- e
(timeline)
groups
- Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
- Atlanta Student Movement
- Black Panther Party
- Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
- Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
- Committee for Freedom Now
- Committee on Appeal for Human Rights
- Council for United Civil Rights Leadership
- Council of Federated Organizations
- Dallas County Voters League
- Deacons for Defense and Justice
- Georgia Council on Human Relations
- Highlander Folk School
- Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
- Lowndes County Freedom Organization
- Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
- Montgomery Improvement Association
- NAACP
- Nashville Student Movement
- Nation of Islam
- Northern Student Movement
- National Council of Negro Women
- National Urban League
- Operation Breadbasket
- Regional Council of Negro Leadership
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
- Southern Regional Council
- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
- The Freedom Singers
- United Auto Workers (UAW)
- Wednesdays in Mississippi
- Women's Political Council
- Ralph Abernathy
- Victoria Gray Adams
- Zev Aelony
- Mathew Ahmann
- Muhammad Ali
- William G. Anderson
- Gwendolyn Armstrong
- Arnold Aronson
- Ella Baker
- James Baldwin
- Marion Barry
- Daisy Bates
- Harry Belafonte
- James Bevel
- Claude Black
- Gloria Blackwell
- Randolph Blackwell
- Unita Blackwell
- Ezell Blair Jr.
- Joanne Bland
- Julian Bond
- Joseph E. Boone
- William Holmes Borders
- Amelia Boynton
- Bruce Boynton
- Raylawni Branch
- Stanley Branche
- Ruby Bridges
- Aurelia Browder
- H. Rap Brown
- Ralph Bunche
- Guy Carawan
- Stokely Carmichael
- Johnnie Carr
- James Chaney
- J. L. Chestnut
- Shirley Chisholm
- Colia Lafayette Clark
- Ramsey Clark
- Septima Clark
- Xernona Clayton
- Eldridge Cleaver
- Kathleen Cleaver
- Charles E. Cobb Jr.
- Annie Lee Cooper
- Dorothy Cotton
- Claudette Colvin
- Vernon Dahmer
- Jonathan Daniels
- Abraham Lincoln Davis
- Angela Davis
- Joseph DeLaine
- Dave Dennis
- Annie Devine
- Patricia Stephens Due
- Joseph Ellwanger
- Charles Evers
- Medgar Evers
- Myrlie Evers-Williams
- Chuck Fager
- James Farmer
- Walter Fauntroy
- James Forman
- Marie Foster
- Golden Frinks
- Andrew Goodman
- Robert Graetz
- Fred Gray
- Jack Greenberg
- Dick Gregory
- Lawrence Guyot
- Prathia Hall
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Fred Hampton
- William E. Harbour
- Vincent Harding
- Dorothy Height
- Audrey Faye Hendricks
- Lola Hendricks
- Aaron Henry
- Oliver Hill
- Donald L. Hollowell
- James Hood
- Myles Horton
- Zilphia Horton
- T. R. M. Howard
- Ruby Hurley
- Cecil Ivory
- Jesse Jackson
- Jimmie Lee Jackson
- Richie Jean Jackson
- T. J. Jemison
- Esau Jenkins
- Barbara Rose Johns
- Vernon Johns
- Frank Minis Johnson
- Clarence Jones
- J. Charles Jones
- Matthew Jones
- Vernon Jordan
- Tom Kahn
- Clyde Kennard
- A. D. King
- C.B. King
- Coretta Scott King
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Martin Luther King Sr.
- Bernard Lafayette
- James Lawson
- Bernard Lee
- Sanford R. Leigh
- Jim Letherer
- Stanley Levison
- John Lewis
- Viola Liuzzo
- Z. Alexander Looby
- Joseph Lowery
- Clara Luper
- Danny Lyon
- Malcolm X
- Mae Mallory
- Vivian Malone
- Bob Mants
- Thurgood Marshall
- Benjamin Mays
- Franklin McCain
- Charles McDew
- Ralph McGill
- Floyd McKissick
- Joseph McNeil
- James Meredith
- William Ming
- Jack Minnis
- Amzie Moore
- Cecil B. Moore
- Douglas E. Moore
- Harriette Moore
- Harry T. Moore
- Queen Mother Moore
- William Lewis Moore
- Irene Morgan
- Bob Moses
- William Moyer
- Elijah Muhammad
- Diane Nash
- Charles Neblett
- Huey P. Newton
- Edgar Nixon
- Jack O'Dell
- James Orange
- Rosa Parks
- James Peck
- Charles Person
- Homer Plessy
- Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
- Fay Bellamy Powell
- Rodney N. Powell
- Al Raby
- Lincoln Ragsdale
- A. Philip Randolph
- George Raymond
- George Raymond Jr.
- Bernice Johnson Reagon
- Cordell Reagon
- James Reeb
- Frederick D. Reese
- Walter Reuther
- Gloria Richardson
- David Richmond
- Bernice Robinson
- Jo Ann Robinson
- Angela Russell
- Bayard Rustin
- Bernie Sanders
- Michael Schwerner
- Bobby Seale
- Cleveland Sellers
- Charles Sherrod
- Alexander D. Shimkin
- Fred Shuttlesworth
- Modjeska Monteith Simkins
- Glenn E. Smiley
- A. Maceo Smith
- Kelly Miller Smith
- Mary Louise Smith
- Maxine Smith
- Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson
- Charles Kenzie Steele
- Hank Thomas
- Dorothy Tillman
- A. P. Tureaud
- Hartman Turnbow
- Albert Turner
- C. T. Vivian
- Wyatt Tee Walker
- Hollis Watkins
- Walter Francis White
- Roy Wilkins
- Hosea Williams
- Kale Williams
- Robert F. Williams
- Andrew Young
- Whitney Young
- Sammy Younge Jr.
- Bob Zellner
- James Zwerg
songs
- "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round"
- "If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus"
- "Kumbaya"
- "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize"
- "Oh, Freedom"
- "This Little Light of Mine"
- "We Shall Not Be Moved"
- "We Shall Overcome"
- "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)"
- Jim Crow laws
- Lynching in the United States
- Plessy v. Ferguson
- Buchanan v. Warley
- Hocutt v. Wilson
- Sweatt v. Painter
- Hernandez v. Texas
- Loving v. Virginia
- African-American women in the movement
- Jews in the civil rights movement
- Fifth Circuit Four
- 16th Street Baptist Church
- Kelly Ingram Park
- A.G. Gaston Motel
- Bethel Baptist Church
- Brown Chapel
- Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
- Holt Street Baptist Church
- Edmund Pettus Bridge
- March on Washington Movement
- African-American churches attacked
- List of lynching victims in the United States
- Freedom Schools
- Freedom songs
- Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
- "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence"
- Voter Education Project
- 1960s counterculture
- African American founding fathers of the United States
- Eyes on the Prize
- In popular culture
- Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
- Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
- Civil Rights Memorial
- Civil Rights Movement Archive
- Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument
- Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument
- Freedom Rides Museum
- Freedom Riders National Monument
- King Center for Nonviolent Social Change
- Martin Luther King Jr. Day
- Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
- Mississippi Civil Rights Museum
- National Civil Rights Museum
- National Voting Rights Museum
- St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument
historians