Lillian Smith was one of the first white southern authors to speak out against white supremacy and segregation.

A child of the South, Lillian Smith (1897-1966) was seen as a traitor to the South for her stance on racial and gender equality. A friend of Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr., she used her fame after writing a bestselling novel ("Strange Fruit") to denounce the toxic social conditions that repressed the lives and imaginations of both Blacks and whites. With her lifelong partner Paula Snelling, she educated privileged white girls at her summer camp in north Georgia and tried to open their minds to a world of compassion and creativity.

Segregation amounted to "spiritual lynching" she said.

Before the Civil Rights Movement took off in the late 1950s, she was a voice of reason to white and Black southerners afraid to speak out.

Here was a southern woman who remained in the South and wasn't afraid to break the silence against the demagogues.

Breaking the Silence (57 min.) is available for FREE viewing. ALSO AVAILABLE HERE ON VIMEO.

“Lillian Smith is a very great, and heroic, and very lonely figure. She has paid a tremendous price for trying to do what she thinks is right. And the price is terribly, terribly high.”

— James Baldwin

“The South can hardly be said to recognize itself without this book [Lillian Smith’s “Strange Fruit”].”

— Alice Walker

“I believe that voices like those of Miss Lillian E. Smith of Georgia...represent the true and basic sentiments of Millions of Southerners, whose voices are yet unheard, whose course is yet unclear and whose courageous acts are yet unseen.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I believe so thoroughly in the philosophy and ideals of Lillian Smith that her productions always bring to me that broadening of vision and soundness of understanding that inspires.”

— Mary McLeod Bethune

“Her writings, her words inspired us all to do better.”

— John Lewis

In the epilogue we decided to give George Yancy and Lonnie King the final word.

We got some pushback for including this after the credits. A few people said it was unnecessary and polarizing. But we wanted to bring Lillian Smith’s message back into our current moment. And we wanted to share the words of a 1960s Atlanta Student Movement leader on the importance of voting. You can decide for yourself if it works or not.

[George Yancy] I think that what is so important about Lillian Smith's work is as we are existing within the 21st century, under our current moment of white nativism, neo-fascism, and authoritarianism, and I think that Lillian Smith's work is utterly indispensable at this moment.

"Killers of the Dream" and "Strange Fruit,” those texts are calling to us in this moment of moral crisis around the question of white supremacy, and Lillian Smith's voice says to us, it says you as white people need to come to terms with your whiteness. Do, as I have done, despite the fact that it was much earlier in American history, but this racism has reconfigured itself, it continues to exist in a different instantiation.

In many ways, Lillian Smith's voice is absolutely indispensable as we tackle white supremacy, neo-fascism, and white authoritarianism in the manifestation and in the embodiment of Donald Trump.

[Lonnie King] If you got maximum participation of all the respective interest groups in the political process, you probably would have a far more progressive South. But as long as you have millions of African Americans throughout the South who can register but who would not register, and on top of that if you also have several hundred thousand Hispanics who could register because they're citizens but who have not done it, you are essentially supporting through your inaction the old slave regime.

But you can't do it with marches. It’s hard work. But it's more than just registration, it's education about why it's important to register and vote, and then you gotta have a mechanism for getting out your vote.

For those people who say that voting doesn't matter, if it doesn't matter then why is it that most white people vote…if it doesn't matter?

Bonus Video!

In 2021, writer/actor Brenda Bynum and myself, with the support of the Fayette County Library, produced a filmed version of of Bynum’s one-act play “Jordan Is So Chilly.”

The performance draws from Lillian Smith's unpublished autobiographical writings as well as passages from her books. Bynum premiered the program in April 2013 for the Lillian Smith Center and has performed it in venues across the South.

This project is supported by Georgia Humanities, in partnership with the Georgia Department of Economic Development, through funding from the Georgia General Assembly.

Public Screenings & Licensing

If your group or organization is interested in a virtual or public screening, please e-mail haljacobs@gmail.com for details.

A digital site license allows colleges and universities unlimited streaming for the life of the file on a closed, password-protected system. Institutions may not charge admission or ask for donations during showings. We will deliver the program in MP4 format. Please e-mail haljacobs@gmail.com for details.

Panelists at our premiere screening at the Decatur Library: (from left) Brenda Bynum, Craig Amason, Hal Jacobs, Patricia Bell-Scott, Rose Gladney (photo by Joe Boris).

Interviewees

Craig Amason, Director of Lillian E. Smith (LES) Center and Piedmont College Archivist

Patricia Bell-Scott, PhD, Author of The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice (2016, winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award and named Booklist Best Adult Nonfiction Book of the Year by the American Library Association); professor emerita of women’s studies and human development and family science at the University of Georgia

Julia Brock, PhD, Assistant professor of history, University of Alabama

Brenda Bynum, Writer/actor of performance based on Smith’s writings: Jordan Is So Chilly: An Encounter with Lillian Smith

Nannette Curran, Clayton resident and acquaintance of Lillian Smith

Nancy Smith Fichter, PhD, LES niece and former chair of FSU Dance Department

Rose Gladney, PhD, Co-editor of A Lillian Smith Reader (2016); Editor of How Am I to Be Heard?: Letters of Lillian Smith (1993); professor emerita of American Studies at the University of Alabama

Lonnie King, leader of 1960 Atlanta Student Movement, Atlanta businessman

Susan Montgomery, Boston-area high school counsellor who has recently “discovered” Lillian Smith

Emily Pierce, Piedmont College student, Lillian E. Smith Fellow

Diane Roberts, PhD, Author, columnist, essayist, radio commentator, reviewer and professor, Florida State University

Tommye Scanlin, Weaver and board member of the Lillian E. Smith Center

Jane Stembridge, 1960s SNCC member, poet and personal friend of Lillian Smith

Christopher Willoughby, PhD, 2016 dissertation on “Pedagogies of the Black Body: Race and Medical Education in the Antebellum United States”

George Yancy, PhD, Author, Professor of Philosophy, Emory University, contributor to New York Times "The Stone" forum

Soundtrack

Neutral Ground pt. 1 & 2
performed by Maggie Koerner
lyrics and music by Maggie Koerner
https://www.maggiekoerner.com/

Orange
lyrics and music and performed by Flight of Swallows
http://www.flightofswallows.com

Caught
lyrics, music and performance by Waiting4UFOs
https://www.w8ing4ufos.com

Canyoneers
performed by Jake Xerxes Fussell
lyrics and music by Loy Clingman
courtesy of Paradise of Bachelors
http://www.jakexerxesfussell.com/

Red Prairie Dawn
performed by Front Porch Collective
music by Garry Harrison
courtesy of Genevieve Koester
http://henrymjacobs.com/fpc

Strange Fruit
performed by Fahamu Pecou, Allen the Human, Okorie Johnson
lyrics and music by Fahamu Pecou, Allen Michael Coe, Brian Harrison, Okorie Johnson
based on original song by Abel Meeropol
https://www.fahamupecouart.com/

Lloyd’s Groove
music and performance by Lloyd Buchanan
https://lloydbuchanan.com

Midnight on the Water
performed by Front Porch Collective
traditional
http://henrymjacobs.com/fpc

Additional music from https://artlist.io/