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rare book that takes us on a journey into the past and, upon
arrival there, shows us the many faces of our present. Margaret
Rose Gladney’s “How Am I To Be Heard?: Letters of Lillian
Smith” is just this kind of extraordinary work.
Gladney, a professor at the University of Alabama, skillfully
presents the letters of Lillian Smith with the intention of at once
displaying Smith’s vision and fueling our own. Gladney makes
sure the reader acknowledges the interconnectedness of Smith’s
life—how each relationship and piece of writing held multiple
meanings.
Bom in 1897, Smith was a Southern, upper-class, white
lesbian who spoke out against segregation and other social ills
long before such stands became popular. Her forthrightness
resulted in such an efficient censorship of her work and life that
today too few people either inside or outside of the South have
even heard of Lillian Smith. Her 1944 best-seller “Strange Fruit”
caused a sensation when it was banned in Boston. Smith also
authored many other books, among them “Killers of the Dream,”
“The Journey,” “Now Is the Time,” and “One Hour.”
To call Smith a “Southerner” is bald understatement. In the
authentic tradition of regional pride, loyalty and tenacity, Smith
did what most people in most times just aren’t brave enough to
do—she stood up for what she believed on her home turf.
“How am I to be heard?” cries Smith, frustrated at the way
the powers that be in the South and North continued to ignore,
trivialize and slight her work. “The line on me is that I am a
‘queer,’ a fanatical ‘old maid who lives by herself up on a
mountain.’”
Through her letters, we glimpse her foes—a network of
white Southern good of, boys working alongside their equally
racist buddies in the North to silence voices like Smith’s that
called for an end to segregation. And as if these bigots weren’t
enough of a problem, her papers—6,000 of them—were burned
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by arsonists. It seems like a cruel force kept lashing out to
silence Smith, but fortunately for us she relentlessly struck back,
insisting on being heard.
Perhaps the notion of “striking” wouldn’t suit Smith. Each
of her letters demonstrates a measured compassion and a delib
erate emphasis on non-violence. During two trips to India, she
became strongly influenced by Gandhi. In 1956, she wrote to
Martin Luther King Jr. that, “Only through persuasion, love,
goodwill and firm nonviolent resistance can the change take
place in our South.” And Smith constantly took full advantage
of her status and talent in order to speak out against the violent
acts of those she termed “racist psychotics.”
Smith was no gradualist and proud of it. In fact, throughout
her letters are sprinkled candid criticisms of eminent Southern
ers such as Ralph McGill and Hodding Carter. She was dis
gusted with people such as those who spoke out against segrega
tion only when it became politic to do so. We find an example of
her typical response to these folks in a 1959 letter. “Most of
Atlanta’s best people have been moral zeroes,” she asserts.
“They began, at least, to say they were ‘against bombings,
violence, and for obedience to law.’ They felt terribly brave to
do so.”
One of the most important things Gladney achieves with this
work is a discussion of Smith’s lesbianism. You won’t find a lot
of people who want to talk about her sexuality. More often than
not, they make sure that you know she was reticent about it. The
case seems open and shut, they imply—she would have been too
much of a lady to talk about such things.
But Gladney lets Smith reply to this contention. Comments
to and about Paula Snelling, her “darling” of 40 years, appear
liberally throughout the letters. In one missive to Paula, Smith
admits her reluctance to tackle the subject of their sexual life.
Yet at the same time, she encourages Paula to do just that.
“However esoteric, or strange or special,” Smith implores, “you
should put down your feelings about you and me.” As well,
Smith regrets the fact that she destroyed some letters of theirs.
“I’m sorry my letters are burned,” she writes. “That is my
ambivalence. My shame about something different and com
pletely good.”
These pages also document Smith’s exchanges with, and
opinions about, many historical figures—Eleanor Roosevelt,
Martin Luther King Jr. and Karl Menninger. But more impor
tantly, her writings serve as a manifesto that demands us to do
more to create a sane, just world.
“Last week in 1960, I repeated much of what I said in
1942—and it is still relevant, still seems ‘new’ to many people,”
she wrote. “Why can’t we catch up with the time? Are we
caught in a nightmare? Are we going to sleepwalk until it will be
too late to act in any rational way?”
At first, a reader maybe dismayed to discover that Smith’s
social commentary still applies to our situation today. But then
she or he will be heartened, because Lillian Smith had the
courage to keep fighting. Her words inspire us to do the same.
JULIE WILSON
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