{"id":365,"date":"2014-03-13T10:00:55","date_gmt":"2014-03-13T15:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/historyapolis.com\/?p=365"},"modified":"2024-01-10T13:43:37","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T19:43:37","slug":"the-woman-who-faced-a-white-mob-lena-olive-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/2014\/03\/13\/the-woman-who-faced-a-white-mob-lena-olive-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"The woman who faced a white mob: Lena Olive Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Published March 13, 2014 by JaneAnne Murray<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Today’s guest blogger is JaneAnne Murray, a Minneapolis-based solo criminal defense lawyer and Practitioner in Residence at the University of Minnesota Law School, where she teaches classes in criminal law and procedure.\u00a0 In this post she describes the life and legacy of Lena Olive Smith, an African American lawyer and one of the earliest leaders of the NAACP in Minneapolis.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are strikingly modern echoes in the life and times of Minneapolis lawyer and activist, Lena Olive Smith (1885-1966). \u00a0She herself cut a distinctly contemporary figure, and not just because of her masculine suits and ties. At age 21, she became the family breadwinner, evolving into a self-made career woman at a time when that ambition was shocking. She was an early devotee of reinventing oneself, trying out a motley series of professions (cosmetologist, hair-dresser, embalmer, realtor) until she alighted serendipitously on the law in her 30s.\u00a0 She broke ceilings most people did not even contemplate\u2013 graduating from law school in 1921 with a handful of other women, and becoming the first African-American woman lawyer to be licensed in Minnesota.\u00a0 She was one of the original public interest lawyers \u2013 taking on (often pro bono) the claims of tenants, modest homeowners, struggling professionals, and criminal defendants, always with an eye to the broader and constitutional dimensions of their cases.\u00a0 And, in part due to her advocacy at the personal level, she became a community organizer and leader, operating with the savvy of one of today\u2019s political strategists who understands that power is seized and wielded in diverse ways.<\/p>\n

This fiercely independent woman found her calling in the nascent civil rights movement.\u00a0 In a highly readable article about Smith\u2019s life and career<\/a>,\u00a0William Mitchell law professor Ann Juergens describes several of the major cases Smith handled during her tenure in leadership positions of the Minneapolis branch of the NAACP, including a ten-year stint as its president from 1930 to 1939. \u00a0In her most famous case, Smith represented Arthur and Edith Lee, a black couple facing a white mob protesting their purchase of a home in a white neighborhood. This photo–published in the NAACP publication The Crisis<\/em>–shows the scene outside 4600 Columbus Avenue, when Smith took charge of the volatile situation.<\/p>\n

Shoring up political allies and police protection, Smith counseled the Lees to stand their ground \u2013 which, with Smith and the NAACP\u2019s support, they managed to do for several years.\u00a0 In another case, Smith and the NAACP helped strategize a political campaign on behalf of a black student denied admission to the nursing program of the University of Minnesota, ostensibly because there were no \u201ccolored wards\u201d for her clinical training.\u00a0 These efforts shamed the Board of Regents into reversing the University\u2019s position.\u00a0 Other causes during these heady years included lobbing against showings of The Birth of A Nation<\/i> (a movie that glorified the Ku Klux Klan), contesting discrimination in public places, and identifying and challenging racial disparities in the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n

Juergens sees Smith\u2019s career as bridging \u201cthe ideal and the real in Minnesota,\u201d between \u201cegalitarian rules\u201d and the \u201cracist practices\u201d they masked \u2013 a project, she acknowledged, that is ongoing. \u00a0One cannot help but see the parallels between Smith\u2019s battles and the segregation, racial inequality and racial stereotyping that continue to persist today: in the areas of housing<\/a>,\u00a0education<\/a>,\u00a0employment<\/a>\u00a0and criminal justice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

History is made real through the stories of people who touch and inspire, connecting the past to our present and to our future.\u00a0 Lena Smith is one who reaches across time with the possibilities \u2013 and responsibilities \u2013 of engaging with family, community, and principle.\u00a0 These impulses invariably conflict.\u00a0 They did in spectacular fashion for Smith, when, in a bizarre and tragic turn of events, she defended one brother on murder charges involving another, just a year out of law school (ethical issues, be damned!). \u00a0After a hung jury, the surviving brother took a plea to manslaughter.\u00a0 Reality is messy and right isn\u2019t always clean.\u00a0 Smith accepted and straddled these contradictions, while playing her part in the bigger struggle to make the world a better place.\u00a0 As such, her story has an Everywoman quality that speaks to all women navigating the dual demands of society\u2019s opportunities and tradition\u2019s expectations.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Published March 13, 2014 by JaneAnne Murray Today’s guest blogger is JaneAnne Murray, a Minneapolis-based solo criminal defense lawyer and Practitioner in Residence at the University of Minnesota Law School, where she teaches classes in criminal law and procedure.\u00a0 In this post she describes the life and legacy of Lena Olive Smith, an African American…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[20,95,96,147,157],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4131,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions\/4131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}