Smith, Lillian Eugenia, 1897-1966

"Lillian Smith was one of the first prominent white southerners to denounce racial segregation openly and to work actively against the entrenched and often brutally enforced world of Jim Crow. From as early as the 1930s, she argued that Jim Crow was evil ("Segregation is spiritual lynching," she said) and that it leads to social moral retardation."--"Lillian Smith (1897-1966)," New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved February 18, 2008: http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org

Author, editor, and civil rights leader. Born in Jasper, Florida. Author of multiple books, including: Strange Fruit (1944), Killers of the Dream (1949), The Journey (1954), and Our Faces, Our Words (1964). Smith was publisher and co-editor with Paula Snelling of The South Today, 1942-1945 (formerly entitled, Pseudopodia, 1937/37, and North Georgia Review, 1937-41).

"Lillian Smith was one of the first prominent white southerners to denounce racial segregation openly and to work actively against the entrenched and often brutally enforced world of Jim Crow. From as early as the 1930s, she argued that Jim Crow was evil ("Segregation is spiritual lynching," she said) and that it leads to social moral retardation."--"Lillian Smith (1897-1966)," New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved February 18, 2008: http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org.

"Lillian Smith was one of the first prominent white southerners to denounce racial segregation openly and to work actively against the entrenched and often brutally enforced world of Jim Crow. From as early as the 1930s, she argued that Jim Crow was evil ("Segregation is spiritual lynching," she said) and that it leads to social moral retardation."--"Lillian Smith (1897-1966)," New Georgia Encyclopedia. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org. (Retrieved February 18, 2008)

Author, journal publisher and editor, and civil rights leader.

Lillian Smith (1897-1966), author, lecturer, human rights advocate, born in Jasper County, Florida, resided in Rabun County, Georgia.

Lillian Smith (1897-1966), author, lecturer, and human rights advocate, born in Jasper County, Florida, resided in Rabun County, Georgia.

Lillian Eugenia Smith, author, was born 12 December 1897, in Jasper, Florida, and died 28 September 1966, in Atlanta, Georgia. She studied piano at the Peabody Conservatory; taught music at Virginia School, Huchow, China; directed Laurel Falls Camp for girls, in north Georgia (1925-1949); and co-edited SOUTH TODAY, a literary magazine (1936-1945). Smith was a supporter of the civil rights movement in her work and in her private life and was the author of STRANGE FRUIT (1944), KILLERS OF THE DREAM (1949), OUR FACES OUR WORDS (1964), and four other books.

Lillian Smith (1897-1966), author, lecturer, human rights advocate, was born in Jasper County, Florida, and resided in Rabun County, Georgia.

Laurel Falls Camp for Girls in Clayton, Georgia was owned and directed by Lillian Smith. The camp was established in 1920 by C.M. Smith, father of Lillian Smith.

Paula Snelling was a school counselor and the longtime partner of Lillian Smith.

"Lillian Smith was one of the first prominent white southerners to denounce racial segregation openly and to work actively against the entrenched and often brutally enforced world of Jim Crow. From as early as the 1930s, she argued that Jim Crow was evil ("Segregation is spiritual lynching," she said) and that it leads to social moral retardation... Lillian Eugenia Smith was born into a large, respectable, prosperous family in Jasper, Florida, on December 12, 1897. When the family business collapsed in 1915, her family moved to their cottage in Clayton, in Rabun County, and started Laurel Falls Girls Camp. Smith studied at Piedmont College in Demorest (1915-16) and then left to help run the family camp. Pursuing her great love of music, she also did two stints at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland (1917, 1919). In 1922 she went to China to offer musical instruction at a Methodist missionary school. When her parents' health began to fail in 1925, she came home and eventually took over the running of the camp, which in time she converted into a place for serious discussion of social issues."--"Lillian Smith (1897-1966)," New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved February 18, 2008: http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org.

Laurel Falls Camp for girls in Clayton, Georgia was owned and directed by Lillian Smith. The camp was established in 1920 by C. M. Smith, father of Lillian Smith.

Lillilan Smith was one of the first prominent white southerners to denounce racial segregation openly and to work actively against the entrenched and often brutally enforced world of Jim Crow. From as early as the 1930s, she argued that Jim Crow was evil ("Segregation is spiritual lynching," she said) and that it leads to social and moral retardation. Smith gained national recognition - and regional denunciation - by writing Strange Fruit (1944), a bold novel of illicit interracial love. Five years later she hurled another thunderbolt against racism in Killers of the Dream (1949), a brilliant psychological and autobiographical work warning that segregation corrupted the soul; removed any possibility of freedom and decency in the South; and had serious implications for women and children in particular in their developing views of sex, their bodies, and their innermost selves. From her home in Clayton, atop Old Screamer Mountain, she openly convened interracial meetings, and she toured the South, talking to people from all races and classes. She was unsparing in her criticisms of "liberals" and "moderates" like Atlanta's famed Ralph McGill and refused to join groups such as the Southern Regional Council until it could oppose segregation as well as racism. In her own psyche she struggled with intensely conflicting desires: to write creatively, following her heart's passions, or to respond to her stern conscience and the intellectual voice of duty. New Georgia Encyclopedia http://newgeorgiaencyclopedia.com (Retrieved February 20, 2009)

Norman Cousins was an American essayist and editor, long associated with the Saturday Review. From 1942-1972 he was editor of the Saturday Review. Following his appointment as executive editor in 1940, he introduced essays that drew a connection between literature and current events, whereupon circulation of the magazine increased 50 percent. Unafraid to criticize, Cousins was outspoken and his articles sometimes bitter. At times he criticized the U.S. government, but he felt strongly that a unique potential for greatness existed in America; he wrote The Good Inheritance: the Democratic Chance (1942) to explore this idea. Cousins felt that modern problems stemmed from the absence of a collective voice and from Americans' inability to see their social and political dilemmas clearly. In 1972 Cousins left the Saturday Review but returned the following year. In 1980 he was named "editor emeritus." In his final years he was adjunct professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral science at the University of California at Los Angeles. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online http://www.britannica.com (Retrieved February 20, 2009)

Paula Snelling was the longtime partner of Lillian Smith. Snelling was a school counselor who assisted Smith with running Laurel Falls Girls Camp.