Glenn E. Smiley
Glenn E. Smiley | |
---|---|
Born | April 19, 1910 Loraine, Texas, U.S. |
Died | September 14, 1993 Glendale, California, U.S. |
Alma mater | University of Redlands |
Glenn Smiley (April 19, 1910 – September 14, 1993) was a white civil rights consultant and leader.[1] He closely studied the doctrine of Mahatma Gandhi and became convinced that racism and segregation were most likely to be overcome without the use of violence, and began studying and teaching peaceful tactics. As an employee of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), he visited Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama in 1956 during the Montgomery bus boycott where Smiley advised King and his associates on nonviolent tactics, and was able to convince King that nonviolence was a feasible solution to racial tension. Smiley, together with Bayard Rustin and others, helped convince King and his associates that complete nonviolence and nonviolent direct action were the most effective methods and tools to use during protest.[2] After the Civil Rights Movement, Smiley continued to employ nonviolence and worked for several organizations promoting peace in South American countries. Just three years before his 1993 death, Smiley opened the King Center in Los Angeles.
Early life
Glenn Smiley was born in Loraine, Texas on April 19, 1910. He attended several universities, including McMurry College, Southwestern University, and the University of Arizona before graduating from University of Redlands.[3]
Career
Smiley worked as the preacher to a Methodist congregation in Arizona, and later California for 14 years. After his work in ministry, Smiley went on to work for several organizations, including the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942, and later served as the national field secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). When World War II broke out and the time came for Smiley to enlist in armed services, he refused to participate. He also opted not to take the clergy exception, which was available to him as a minister. These actions classified him as a conscientious objector and he went on to serve time in prison in 1945 for his lack of compliance.[4] Smiley believed that prison is only secondary to war in dehumanization and violence. In Smiley's sixties, he suffered from 44 small strokes. These strokes greatly affected his memory and speech for 15 years, until one day he woke up and seemed to be completely back to his normal self and even went on to give 103 major lectures.[5]
During his work in ministry in the 1940s, Smiley developed an interest for the methods of Mahatma Gandhi and his methods of self-discipline and nonviolence. From these studies, he developed his theory that nonviolence was the most effective way to combat discrimination. Smiley first used his theory of nonviolence in the late 1940s when he attempted to spur integration of tearooms of department stores in the Los Angeles area.[6] Smiley went on to have a professional relationship with Martin Luther King Jr., in which he advised King on nonviolence tactics and emphasized the importance of nonviolence in the success of the Civil Rights Movement. Smiley was already impressed with Dr. King's leadership, but was critical of King for having a bodyguard. In a letter that Smiley had written to some of his friends, he was quoted writing, "If King can really be won to a faith of nonviolence there is no end to what he can do. Soon he will be able to direct the movement by sheer force of being the symbol of resistance."[7] Smiley also persuaded King that there needs to be an active dialogue between the white and black ministers in the South. King sent Smiley around the South preaching the doctrine to church congregations and civil-rights groups, and nonviolence quickly became a binding premise of King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference.[8]
During the Montgomery bus boycott, Smiley participated by spreading news of the boycott to his congregation. Smiley was also charged with appealing to Southern white people, and accessed group meetings of organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the WCC. He is quoted saying, "my assignment was to make every contact possible in the white community." After the resolution of Browder v. Gayle on December 17, 1956, it was ruled by the Supreme Court that segregation on city busses is unconstitutional; the MIA developed a set of guidelines to help black residents successfully ride on the newly integrated busses. Smiley, along with Martin Luther King Jr. and other MIA leaders, was an integral author of these new guidelines.[9]
After the Supreme Court's ruling in Browder v. Gayle Smiley rode with Martin Luther King Jr. and Reverend Ralph D. Abernathy on the first day that bus segregation ended in Montgomery. Smiley later said that he took the bus ride to get a reaction, as his organizational work had been urging nonviolence.[10] Later during the student sit-in movement during the 1960s, Smiley was a strong supporter and urged the students to attend a conference at Shaw University that would go on to be the birthplace of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).[11]
In the 1960s, Smiley founded the Methodist-inspired organization called Justice-Action-Peace Latin America, which was responsible for organizing seminars on nonviolence in Latin American countries between the years of 1967 and the early 1970s.[12] Smiley traveled to South American countries, where he taught nonviolence during the time he worked under the National Council of Churches and the National Council of Catholic Bishops. Shortly before his death, Smiley founded the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolence in Los Angeles in 1990 to further his lifelong philosophy of nonviolence.[13] Speaking about the King Center, Smiley stressed "nonviolence is the most effective way of achieving change because in the process it does not rip countries apart; it builds, it does not destroy."
Death
Smiley died on September 14, 1993, in Glendale, California, at the age of 83.[14] In a statement issued by Dean Hunsell, a board member of Los Angeles chapter of the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolence, it was announced that Smiley died of natural causes likely connected to complications from a previous stroke.[15] Smiley left behind his wife, Helen, as well as three children, eight grandchildren, and 22 great-grandchildren.[16]
References
- ^ The New York Times, Sept. 18, 1993. p.19
- ^ King, Dr. Martin Luther. Stride Toward Freedom pp. 163, 173
- ^ "Smiley, Glenn E. (1910-1993)". King Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 26 October 2013.
- ^ "Glenn Smiley". The Civil Rights Movement as Theological Drama. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 26 October 2013.
- ^ "How Nonviolence Works". Followship of Reconciliation. Archived from the original on 24 April 2015. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
- ^ "Glenn Smiley". The Civil Rights Movement as Theological Drama. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 26 October 2013.
- ^ "Smiley, Glenn E. (1910-1993)". King Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 22 March 2015.
- ^ Folkart, Burt (17 September 1993). "Glenn Smiley; Advised King on Nonviolence". LA Times. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 26 October 2013.
- ^ "Smiley, Glenn E. (1910-1993)". King Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 26 October 2013.
- ^ Castleberry, Forrest (December 21, 1956). "The Montgomery Bus Boycott: They Changed The Worls". Archived from the original on 1 July 2013. Retrieved 26 October 2013.
- ^ "Smiley, Glenn E. (1910-1993)". King Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 26 October 2013.
- ^ "Smiley, Glenn E. (1910-1993)". King Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 26 October 2013.
- ^ Folkart, Burt (17 September 1993). "Glenn Smiley; Advised King on Nonviolence". LA Times. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 26 October 2013.
- ^ "Glenn E. Smiley, 83, Civil Rights Advocate". New York Times. 18 September 1993. Archived from the original on 26 July 2023. Retrieved 26 October 2013.
- ^ "Glenn E. Smiley, 83, Civil Rights Advocate". New York Times. 18 September 1993. Archived from the original on 26 July 2023. Retrieved 26 October 2013.
- ^ "Glenn E. Smiley, 83, Civil Rights Advocate". New York Times. 18 September 1993. Archived from the original on 26 July 2023. Retrieved 26 October 2013.
- v
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groups
- Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
- Atlanta Student Movement
- Black Panther Party
- Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
- Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
- Committee for Freedom Now
- Committee on Appeal for Human Rights
- Council for United Civil Rights Leadership
- Council of Federated Organizations
- Dallas County Voters League
- Deacons for Defense and Justice
- Georgia Council on Human Relations
- Highlander Folk School
- Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
- Lowndes County Freedom Organization
- Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
- Montgomery Improvement Association
- NAACP
- Nashville Student Movement
- Nation of Islam
- Northern Student Movement
- National Council of Negro Women
- National Urban League
- Operation Breadbasket
- Regional Council of Negro Leadership
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
- Southern Regional Council
- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
- The Freedom Singers
- United Auto Workers (UAW)
- Wednesdays in Mississippi
- Women's Political Council
- Ralph Abernathy
- Victoria Gray Adams
- Zev Aelony
- Mathew Ahmann
- Muhammad Ali
- William G. Anderson
- Gwendolyn Armstrong
- Arnold Aronson
- Ella Baker
- James Baldwin
- Marion Barry
- Daisy Bates
- Harry Belafonte
- James Bevel
- Claude Black
- Gloria Blackwell
- Randolph Blackwell
- Unita Blackwell
- Ezell Blair Jr.
- Joanne Bland
- Julian Bond
- Joseph E. Boone
- William Holmes Borders
- Amelia Boynton
- Bruce Boynton
- Raylawni Branch
- Stanley Branche
- Ruby Bridges
- Aurelia Browder
- H. Rap Brown
- Ralph Bunche
- Guy Carawan
- Stokely Carmichael
- Johnnie Carr
- James Chaney
- J. L. Chestnut
- Shirley Chisholm
- Colia Lafayette Clark
- Ramsey Clark
- Septima Clark
- Xernona Clayton
- Eldridge Cleaver
- Kathleen Cleaver
- Charles E. Cobb Jr.
- Annie Lee Cooper
- Dorothy Cotton
- Claudette Colvin
- Vernon Dahmer
- Jonathan Daniels
- Abraham Lincoln Davis
- Angela Davis
- Joseph DeLaine
- Dave Dennis
- Annie Devine
- Patricia Stephens Due
- Joseph Ellwanger
- Charles Evers
- Medgar Evers
- Myrlie Evers-Williams
- Chuck Fager
- James Farmer
- Walter Fauntroy
- James Forman
- Marie Foster
- Golden Frinks
- Andrew Goodman
- Robert Graetz
- Fred Gray
- Jack Greenberg
- Dick Gregory
- Lawrence Guyot
- Prathia Hall
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Fred Hampton
- William E. Harbour
- Vincent Harding
- Dorothy Height
- Audrey Faye Hendricks
- Lola Hendricks
- Aaron Henry
- Oliver Hill
- Donald L. Hollowell
- James Hood
- Myles Horton
- Zilphia Horton
- T. R. M. Howard
- Ruby Hurley
- Cecil Ivory
- Jesse Jackson
- Jimmie Lee Jackson
- Richie Jean Jackson
- T. J. Jemison
- Esau Jenkins
- Barbara Rose Johns
- Vernon Johns
- Frank Minis Johnson
- Clarence Jones
- J. Charles Jones
- Matthew Jones
- Vernon Jordan
- Tom Kahn
- Clyde Kennard
- A. D. King
- C.B. King
- Coretta Scott King
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Martin Luther King Sr.
- Bernard Lafayette
- James Lawson
- Bernard Lee
- Sanford R. Leigh
- Jim Letherer
- Stanley Levison
- John Lewis
- Viola Liuzzo
- Z. Alexander Looby
- Joseph Lowery
- Clara Luper
- Danny Lyon
- Malcolm X
- Mae Mallory
- Vivian Malone
- Bob Mants
- Thurgood Marshall
- Benjamin Mays
- Franklin McCain
- Charles McDew
- Ralph McGill
- Floyd McKissick
- Joseph McNeil
- James Meredith
- William Ming
- Jack Minnis
- Amzie Moore
- Cecil B. Moore
- Douglas E. Moore
- Harriette Moore
- Harry T. Moore
- Queen Mother Moore
- William Lewis Moore
- Irene Morgan
- Bob Moses
- William Moyer
- Elijah Muhammad
- Diane Nash
- Charles Neblett
- Huey P. Newton
- Edgar Nixon
- Jack O'Dell
- James Orange
- Rosa Parks
- James Peck
- Charles Person
- Homer Plessy
- Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
- Fay Bellamy Powell
- Rodney N. Powell
- Al Raby
- Lincoln Ragsdale
- A. Philip Randolph
- George Raymond
- George Raymond Jr.
- Bernice Johnson Reagon
- Cordell Reagon
- James Reeb
- Frederick D. Reese
- Walter Reuther
- Gloria Richardson
- David Richmond
- Bernice Robinson
- Jo Ann Robinson
- Angela Russell
- Bayard Rustin
- Bernie Sanders
- Michael Schwerner
- Bobby Seale
- Cleveland Sellers
- Charles Sherrod
- Alexander D. Shimkin
- Fred Shuttlesworth
- Modjeska Monteith Simkins
- Glenn E. Smiley
- A. Maceo Smith
- Kelly Miller Smith
- Mary Louise Smith
- Maxine Smith
- Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson
- Charles Kenzie Steele
- Hank Thomas
- Dorothy Tillman
- A. P. Tureaud
- Hartman Turnbow
- Albert Turner
- C. T. Vivian
- Wyatt Tee Walker
- Hollis Watkins
- Walter Francis White
- Roy Wilkins
- Hosea Williams
- Kale Williams
- Robert F. Williams
- Andrew Young
- Whitney Young
- Sammy Younge Jr.
- Bob Zellner
- James Zwerg
songs
- "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round"
- "If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus"
- "Kumbaya"
- "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize"
- "Oh, Freedom"
- "This Little Light of Mine"
- "We Shall Not Be Moved"
- "We Shall Overcome"
- "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)"
- Jim Crow laws
- Lynching in the United States
- Plessy v. Ferguson
- Buchanan v. Warley
- Hocutt v. Wilson
- Sweatt v. Painter
- Hernandez v. Texas
- Loving v. Virginia
- African-American women in the movement
- Jews in the civil rights movement
- Fifth Circuit Four
- 16th Street Baptist Church
- Kelly Ingram Park
- A.G. Gaston Motel
- Bethel Baptist Church
- Brown Chapel
- Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
- Holt Street Baptist Church
- Edmund Pettus Bridge
- March on Washington Movement
- African-American churches attacked
- List of lynching victims in the United States
- Freedom Schools
- Freedom songs
- Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
- "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence"
- Voter Education Project
- 1960s counterculture
- African American founding fathers of the United States
- Eyes on the Prize
- In popular culture
- Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
- Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
- Civil Rights Memorial
- Civil Rights Movement Archive
- Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument
- Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument
- Freedom Rides Museum
- Freedom Riders National Monument
- King Center for Nonviolent Social Change
- Martin Luther King Jr. Day
- Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
- Mississippi Civil Rights Museum
- National Civil Rights Museum
- National Voting Rights Museum
- St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument
historians