Lillian Smith

Overview

Lillian Smith born Jasper, FL December 12, 1897 (d. 1966). American writer and social critic. Author of best-selling anti-segregation novel Strange Fruit (1944) and essay collection Killers of the Dream (1949). Wrote FOR pamphlet “The White Christian and His Conscience”, 1945. Bayard Rustin credited her for getting him to teach Martin Luther King Jr. nonviolence.

Quotations

“Only through persuasion, love, goodwill, and firm nonviolent resistance can the change take place in our South.” (to Martin Luther King, Jr., March 19, 1956)

“[F]reedom is a hard thing, that change means inner as well as outer change, that nonviolence has to do as much with truth as with love.” (preface, Our Faces, Our Words, 1964; photo Wikipedia)