Restoring the Legacy of Lillian Smith: How a Forgotten Southern Writer and Civil Rights Pioneer Challenged Jim Crow

Long before the modern civil rights movement galvanized the American consciousness in the 1950s and 1960s, a remarkable white Southern woman named Lillian Smith was already on the front lines, fighting fiercely to dismantle segregation, challenge the entrenched power structures of the Deep South, and expose the psychological toll of racism. Writing bestselling books that were routinely censored, banned, and even publicly burned across the country, Smith was a visionary whose progressive ideals threatened the status quo of her era. Yet, despite her monumental contributions to American literature and social justice, her name faded from public memory for decades, leaving many contemporary Americans entirely unaware of who she was and what she sacrificed.

In a reflective and deeply personal essay, historian Kerri Leigh Smith—author of An Inconvenient Woman—explores the life, struggles, and enduring legacy of this crucial historical figure, shedding light on a woman whose work demands renewed recognition and honor.

The journey to understanding Lillian Smith often begins where she spent most of her life: Old Screamer Mountain. Arriving at Smith’s long-time home in Clayton, Georgia, for the first time during the early fall, Kerri Leigh Smith was immediately struck by the striking natural beauty of the Appalachian landscape. The changing leaves—illuminating the clear sky with vibrant oranges, reds, golds, maroons, mustards, and burnt siennas—offered a poignant reminder of how mournfully short life can be. Having previously visited Clayton to hike the trails, arriving at the historic property felt both serenely familiar and profoundly like home.

As the months of research unfolded, the modern historian discovered a striking series of parallel lines connecting her life to Lillian Smith’s. Both women were born in other Deep South states—Smith in Florida, Kerri Leigh Smith in Mississippi—and both ultimately chose Georgia as their home, despite frequently finding themselves in sharp, bitter disagreement with the majority of the state’s white citizenry. They shared childhoods burdened by complex, troubling relationships with their mothers, and both enjoyed their education deeply shaped by extensive travel, particularly abroad, during their teenage and young adult years.

Furthermore, both women experienced severe interruptions to their life’s work due to serious illness and had to navigate and overcome major personal losses. Ideologically, they shared the conviction that dismantling racism required a multifaceted approach, combining personal relationships, education, art, psychology, and policy. Their speaking careers similarly blossomed through engagement with civil rights organizations, Southern colleges, and private organizations in New York. Both women possessed a reputation for being impatient, morally rigorous—perhaps even righteous at times—and admittedly a bit too intolerant of intolerance. Ultimately, both stood far to the left of the political and social mainstream of white Americans in their respective generations.

Intensely intrigued by the diminutive, wire-framed woman from Old Screamer Mountain, Kerri Leigh Smith began conducting intensive historical research. The findings were immediately enthralling. Lillian Smith was a white woman openly fighting to dismantle segregation as early as the 1930s. She achieved national acclaim as a bestselling author, only to see her books targeted by censors, burned in bonfires, and banned in multiple cities across America. Furthermore, she lived openly as a lesbian with her lifelong partner and collaborator, Paula Snelling. It became increasingly clear that Smith had been nearly erased from standard historical narratives precisely because she posed—and in many ways still poses—a fundamental threat to the prevailing racial and social hierarchies of the American power structure.

Despite this historical marginalization, Smith and her ideas deserve to be universally known by contemporary Americans. Her essays should be standard reading in educational classrooms, and entire college curricula should be dedicated to exploring her written works and activism. As Kerri Leigh Smith’s research evolved into a book-length project, she began working closely with Matthew Teutsch, then the Director of the Lillian Smith Center before it was defunded by Piedmont University. For years, Teutsch worked tirelessly to restore Smith’s rightful place in history. Those efforts culminated on April 20, 2022, when Lillian E. Smith finally received her own historical marker from the Georgia Historical Society.

The text of the marker reads: “Smith openly challenged Jim Crow and provided a critical White voice on Southern race relations through her writings, including the novel Strange Fruit and memoir Killers of the Dream, and a literary magazine co-edited with her life partner Paula Snelling. Through her involvement with Civil Rights organizations, Smith became friends with Martin Luther King, Jr.”

By explicitly recognizing Paula Snelling as Lillian’s life and intellectual partner, the marker became one of—if not the absolute only—historical markers in the Deep South to formally acknowledge a same-sex relationship. It also stands as one of the exceedingly rare markers in the entire state of Georgia dedicated to honoring a woman. In a geographic landscape historically saturated with Civil War markers, the revolutionary nature of Smith’s plaque cannot be overstated. Representing one of the few women listed among thousands of men, and one of the very few LGBTQ+ individuals, she also remains one of the singular white Southerners officially honored for their steadfast dedication to the civil rights movement.

By the time the historical marker was officially approved, Kerri Leigh Smith had delivered multiple lectures on the importance of Smith’s life and work, establishing herself as a leading expert on the author. When Dr. Teutsch invited her to deliver the keynote speech for the marker’s dedication ceremony, she realized she had to temporarily set aside other commitments to complete An Inconvenient Woman, the first book in forty years to comprehensively examine Smith’s life, work, and sexuality.

In her dedication address, Kerri Leigh Smith focused on how Lillian Smith fearlessly exposed the moral failures and sins of white America while simultaneously maintaining an unwavering sense of hope, effectively lighting a path toward a better future. Smith possessed a unique approach as a public intellectual: she would scold and preach, yet simultaneously welcome back ideological sinners with open arms and a deeply forgiving heart.

According to Smith’s writings, the fundamental key to achieving true social peace lay in constructing new, constructive identities for white supremacists whose self-images had been shattered by the forces of modernity and progress. As Smith famously wrote, “when a man gives up something, even old defenses, he is not going to feel good unless he has something equal, or better, returned to him. We must give our people new beliefs, new images of themselves to substitute for the old.”

These principles—forging new beliefs and new self-images—serve as a vital blueprint for helping to heal contemporary society. As Kerri Leigh Smith emphasized during the marker’s dedication, keeping Lillian Smith’s name and her critical mission alive remains imperative for both guiding and inspiring current generations. Her extraordinary life stands as a powerful reminder of the difficult, frequently selfless, and sometimes dangerous work required to build a genuinely equitable, peaceful, and loving society, calling upon modern citizens to take up the mantle in honor of Smith and the countless other fearless freedom fighters who paved the way.