An Inconvenient Woman: The Extraordinary Life of Lillian Smith, the Southerner Who Defied Jim Crow America . Keri Lee Merritt

Keri Leigh Merritt’s new biography, An Inconvenient Woman: The Extraordinary Life of Lillian Smith, the Southerner Who Defied Jim Crow America, reintroduces readers to the unflinching, ethically demanding voice of writer and activist Lillian E. Smith in this moment when we—social workers and so many others—need inspiration and leadership in the ongoing fight for justice. Describing the power of Smith’s voice, Merritt repeats words spoken at Howard University’s 1950 commencement: “There is enough dynamite in what [Lillian Smith has] to say to blow up the very foundation of segregated civilization” (p. 158). Though this metaphor is a violent one, Smith was fully committed to a fierce form of nonviolence: her tools were activism, racial integration, and the written word. As Merritt writes, “Lil believed that the country needed more extremism for good, for love, and for humanity” (p. 190). Smith, a White Southern woman born in 1897, became an important and controversial voice for racial justice in the New Deal era and continued to be so through her death in 1966. Indeed, according to Merritt, she was “the lone white Southerner speaking out against segregation as early as the 1930s” (p. 238). Smith called out White supremacy as an “addiction” and diagnosed the whole country as “suffering from withdrawal pains” (Smith, 1964/2016). In her writing, she exposed the damage that White supremacy inflicts upon the emotional and moral well-being of White and Black Americans, especially children; she interrogated the possibilities for interracial love; and she explored the roots of racist violence. In addition to writing, she channeled her outrage at Jim Crow’s injustices into action and activism. In the early 1940s, in her hometown of Clayton, Georgia, she helped open an integrated maternity home (the first in the state) and helped to integrate the public library. Smith also publicly protested segregation and partnered with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality. As Merritt writes, “Lillian’s commitment to organized activism was steadfast throughout her life” (p. 87).