Collier, Lucy Smith, 1924-2010

Elder Lucy Smith was born Lucinda Madden on a plantation in Woodstock, Ga., on January 14, 1875. In 1896, Lucy Madden married William Smith, and the couple moved to a nearby farm, where in 1898 the couple had their first of nine children. In 1908, the family moved from Woodstock to Athens, Ga., where William Smith abandoned the family. Lucy and the children left for Chicago, arriving in the city on May 1, 1910. William Smith remained in Athens, but later rejoined the family and stayed with them in Chicago until his death in 1938. A Baptist since age 12, in Chicago Lucy Smith affiliated first with Olivet Baptist Church and then briefly with Ebenezer Baptist. In 1912 she left the Baptist faith altogether and joined Stone Church, a predominantly white Pentecostal assembly at 37th Street and Indiana Avenue. At Stone Church, Lucy Smith became a convert to Pentecostal worship and beliefs, particularly faith healing, a gift that she would practice within a few weeks of attending Stone Church. Sensing a call to start her own ministry, Lucy Smith left Stone Church and formed a small prayer band in 1916 with two other women at her home on Langley Avenue, from which grew the Langley Avenue All Nations Pentecostal Church in 1918. Smith was known for being a faith healer who claimed to have healed over 200,000 people. The first black woman to pastor a major congregation in Chicago, Elder Lucy Smith led a congregation that included a significant number of whites and other minorities as well as people from various socioeconomic levels. From its inception, All Nations was almost exclusively administered by women, a sharp contrast to more mainline black churches in Bronzeville, where women's ministry and leadership were largely opposed. Elder Lucy Smith died on June 18, 1952. Smith was buried beside her husband and several of her children. She was survived by three of her children: Ardella, Henry and John. Lucy Smith Collier: One of Chicago's most gifted gospel artists, Lucy Smith Collier grew up in All Nations Pentecostal Church as the granddaughter of Elder Lucy Smith. Lucy Smith Collier was born to Elder Lucy Smith's eldest daughter, Viola, and her husband, James Austin, in 1924. In her teens, Lucy Smith Collier formed the Lucy Smith Singers, which included herself, Gladys Beamon Gregory, Catherine Campbell and Sarah McKissick Simmons. After the death of Elder Lucy Smith, Lucy Smith Collier joined the Roberta Martin Singers, and in addition to singing and playing piano for the group, she arranged most of their music. The crowning achievement of her career came in 1981 when a ceremony in Washington, D.C. inducted most of her gospel songs into the Smithsonian Institution.