Lillian Smith (author) explained

Lillian Smith
Birth Name:Lillian Eugenia Smith
Birth Date:12 December 1897
Birth Place:Jasper, Florida
Resting Place:Laurel Falls: Clayton, Georgia
Occupation:Writer
Nationality:American
Citizenship:American
Education:Piedmont College,
Peabody Conservatory
Genres:-->
Subjects:-->
Movement:Civil Rights Movement
Notableworks:Strange Fruit (novel)
Notablework:-->
Spouses:-->
Partner:Paula Snelling

Lillian Eugenia Smith (December 12, 1897 – September 28, 1966) was a writer and social critic of the Southern United States, known for both her non-fiction and fiction works, including the best-selling novel Strange Fruit (1944). Smith was a White woman who openly embraced controversial positions on matters of race and gender equality. She was a southern liberal who was unafraid to criticize segregation and to work toward the dismantling of Jim Crow laws at a time when such actions virtually guaranteed social ostracism.

Early life

Smith was born on December 12, 1897, to a prominent family in Jasper, Florida, the seventh of nine children. Her life as the daughter of an upper middle-class civic and business leader took an abrupt turn in 1915 when her father lost his turpentine mills. The family was not without resources, however, and relocated to their summer residence in the mountains of Clayton, Georgia, where her father had previously purchased property. There, the family operated the Laurel Falls Camp for Girls starting in 1920.

As a young adult financially on her own, Smith was free to pursue her love of music and teaching. She spent a year studying at Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia, (1915–16). She also had two stints at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore in 1917 and 1919. She returned home to help her parents manage a hotel and taught in two mountain schools before accepting a position as director of music at a Methodist school for girls in Huzhou (now Wuxing, Zhejiang), China, even though she was not a churchgoer and did not consider herself religious. This time abroad was pivotal in Smith's awareness of the Southern double standard. She studied Chinese philosophy during her time overseas and by living in China was exposed to the similarities between the suppression of the Chinese and the suppression of African-Americans in the States.[1]

As a result of her father's declining health, Smith was forced to return from China in 1925. Back in Georgia, she became the head of the Laurel Falls Camp, a position she would hold for 23 years (1925–48). Under her direction, Laurel Falls Camp soon became very popular as an innovative educational institution known for its instruction in the arts, music, drama, and modern psychology. When her father died in 1930 she took responsibility for the family business and the care of her ill mother.

Personal life and career

During her time at the family camp, Lillian Smith began a lifelong relationship with one of the camp's school counselors, Paula Snelling, of Pinehurst, Georgia. The two remained closeted as a lesbian couple for the rest of their lives, as their correspondence has shown.[2] Smith never addressed her sexuality openly. However, some of her literature's characters were lesbians. At that time, homosexuality was viewed even more negatively in Southern society than desegregation.

Smith and Snelling began publishing a small quarterly literary magazine, Pseudopodia, in 1936. The magazine encouraged writers, Black or White, to offer honest assessments of modern Southern life and to work for social and economic reform; it criticized those who ignored the Old South's poverty and racial injustice. It quickly gained regional fame as a forum for liberal thought, undergoing two name changes to reflect its expanding scope. In 1937 it became the North Georgia Review, and in 1942, the title was changed to its final form, South Today. South Today ceased publication in 1945. (All issues of Pseudopodia/North Georgia Review/South Today are available online through the Archives Online of Piedmont University Library in Demorest, Georgia.)

In 1944, Smith published the bestselling novel Strange Fruit, which dealt with the then-forbidden and controversial theme of interracial romance. The title was originally Jordan is so Chilly, with Smith later changing the title to Strange Fruit. In her autobiography, singer Billie Holiday wrote that Smith chose to name the book after her song "Strange Fruit", which is about lynching, although Smith maintained that the book's title referred to the "damaged, twisted people (both black and white) who are the products or results of our racist culture."[3] [4] [5] After the book's release, it was banned in Boston and Detroit for "lewdness" and crude language.[6] Strange Fruit was also forbidden to be mailed through the United States Postal System. The ban against the book was eventually lifted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt after his wife Eleanor requested it of him.[7]

In 1949, Smith wrote the book Killers of the Dream, a collection of essays that attempted to identify, challenge and dismantle the Old South's racist traditions, customs and beliefs, warning that racial segregation corrupted the soul. She also emphasized the negative implications on the minds of women and children. Written in a confessional and autobiographical style that was highly critical of Southern moderates, it was largely ignored by critics of the time.[8]

Relationship with Paula Snelling

Paula Snelling was one of the individuals Lillian Smith was closest to. They shared a job as co-directors of Laurel Falls Camp for Girls. Snelling also worked as a school teacher and librarian outside of the girls camp and she wrote as well, but not much is known about her specific works. Paula Snelling was Lillian Smith's lifelong partner, but they were not out at the time because of the intense backlash that would have come with it. Starting in 1936, Smith and Snelling together published a literary magazine called South Today.

Civil Rights activism

One of the ways Smith started openly discussing the problems of segregation was during her counseling of campers at Laurel Falls. This period, also referred to as the creative control over the camp, allowed her to use it as a place to discuss modern social issues, like the dangers of inequality and how to improve their society both for themselves and other women. In 1955, the civil rights movement grabbed the entire nation's attention with the Montgomery bus boycott, which started the widespread interest of this movement. By this time she had been meeting or corresponding with many southern Blacks and liberal whites for years who knew of the Blacks' concerns. In response to Brown v. Board of Education, the ruling that outlawed segregation in schools, she wrote Now Is the Time (1955), calling for compliance with the new court decision. She called the new ruling "every child's Magna Carta". She knew that both the lives of both blacks and whites depended on the integration of society.

Lillian Smith wrote various speeches and books, targeting the need for desegregation and civil rights. In December 1956, Smith wrote a speech titled “The Right Way is Not a Moderate Way” for First Annual Institute on Non-violence and Social Change. As she was unable to give this speech due to her cancer, Rufus Lewis spoke it for her. She was also close with Martin Luther King Jr and was riding with him when he was ticketed in 1960. Lillian Smith was an active member of CORE and supported SNCC, speaking at the first SNCC in October 1960. She saw the passing of the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts.[9]

Works

Over Lillian Smith's lifetime, she wrote various books over various topics that received both positive and negative reactions. One of Smith's most famous books is Strange Fruit, published in 1944. This work tackles the idea of interracial relationships in the South. This follows the son of a very prominent family named Tracy Deen who falls in love with Nonnie, a black woman, who he had saved from a group of white boys that were threatening to rape her. She ended up pregnant with Tracy's child. Tracy bribes their housekeeper to marry Nonnie so that their child will have a good father, one who does not have to worry about their “family image” as the child was more than likely going to be black and even mixed children were frowned on too. Especially during this time in the South, there were various opinions about interracial relationships, most of them including a racist point of view. Because of this, Strange Fruit was banned in some states after the intense amount of criticism that followed it.

Another one of Smith's most well known works is Killers of the Dream, published in 1949. This book contains Smith's memories of being a child being raised in the segregated south and the issues that come with this normalized idea along with the issues of how the South teaches sin. Smith also tackles how this affects children and adults alike, black and whites alike.

Two of Smith's lesser known works are Now is the Time and The Journey. Now is the Time, published in 1955, tackles the idea of desegregating the South and civil rights for Blacks. She calls out the cultural norms of racism and segregation. On the other hand, The Journey, published in 1954, tackles the idea of white privilege and how it affects society. Later on in the book, Smith talks about her struggle with breast cancer, which is her cause of death later on.

Death

Smith battled breast cancer from the early 1950s on, ultimately dying of the disease on September 28, 1966, at the age of 68. Her book The Journey (1954) details some of this battle. She is buried near the old theater chimney at Laurel Falls camp atop Screamer Mountain, in Clayton, Georgia.[10]

Legacy

Today, Strange Fruit remains her most famous work, translated into 15 languages.

In 1999, Lillian Smith received the Georgia Women of Achievement Award.[11]

Since 1968, the Lillian Smith Book Awards have been presented annually, except for 2003 when the Southern Regional Council experienced funding shortfalls.[12] It is the South's oldest and best-known book award, and is presented in fiction and non-fiction categories.[13] It is meant to honor those authors who, through their outstanding writing about the American South, carry on Smith's legacy of elucidating the condition of racial and social inequity and proposing a vision of justice and human understanding. According to Cheryl Johnson's "The Language of Sexuality and Silence in Lillian Smith's Strange Fruit", her work examines many different perspectives of American consciousness and is a great source to better understand Southern history post-Civil War through the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Complete list of Lillian E Smith's works

Books

Articles

Book reviews

Editorials and articles in South Today

Fiction, poetry, drama in South Today

Book reviews in South Today

Other media

Selected works

Collections

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Hobson. Fred. The Sins of the Fathers: Lillian Smith and Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin. The Southern Review. 34. 1. Autumn 1998. Louisiana State University Press. Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 755–779.
  2. Book: Gladney, Margaret Rose. Personalizing the Political, Politicizing the Personal: Reflections on Editing the Letters of Lillian Smith. Carryin' On in the Lesbian and Gay South. John. Howard. New York University Press. New York City. 1997. 978-0814735602. 102.
  3. Book: Kathy. Perkins. Judith Stephens. Strange Fruit: Plays on Lynching by American Women. 1998. Indiana University Press. Bloomington, Indiana. 0253211638. 222–225.
  4. News: Stover . Frances . Lillian Smith's 'Strange Fruit' stirs a storm . . March 26, 1944 . 3 . December 24, 2009 . January 24, 2013 . https://archive.today/20130124122705/http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AvAZAAAAIBAJ&sjid=BCMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3016,4001421&dq=lillian-smith+strange-fruit&hl=en . dead .
  5. Johnson. Cheryl L.. The Language of Sexuality and Silence in Lillian Smith's Strange Fruit. Signs. Autumn 2001. 27. 1. 1–22. 3175864. 10.1086/495668. 144256994.
  6. Hub Head Cop Blackens City In Book Ban. Billboard. April 1, 1944. 3.
  7. Book: Goldner, Ellen. Racing and (E)Racing Language: Living With the Color of Our Words. 2001. Syracuse University Press. Syracuse, New York. 0815628927. 100–105.
  8. Web site: John C.. Inscoe. Killers of the Dream. New Georgia Encyclopedia. March 3, 2006.
  9. Web site: Teutsch . Matthew . 2021-12-20 . MLK And Lillian Smith . 2022-03-29 . AAIHS . en-US.
  10. Book: Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, Third Edition. McFarland & Company. Jefferson, North Carolina. 2016. 699. 978-0786479924.
  11. https://www.georgiawomen.org/copy-of-sibley-celestine "Lillian Eugenia Smith"
  12. AP, "Lillian Smith Book Awards for works on social justice to be revived", USAToday, February 12, 2004.
  13. Web site: Michels . Kat . Heroines of History: Lillian Smith - A Civil Rights Leader Ahead of her Time . Business Heroine Magazine . May 7, 2017.

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