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Mitchell Hamline School of LawMitchell Hamline Open Access
Faculty Scholarship
2001
Lena Olive Smith: A Minnesota Civil RightsPioneerAnn JuergensMitchell Hamline School of Law, [email protected]
Publication Information28 William Mitchell Law Review 397 (2001)
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Mitchell HamlineOpen Access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship byan authorized administrator of Mitchell Hamline Open Access. For moreinformation, please contact [email protected].
Repository CitationJuergens, Ann, "Lena Olive Smith: A Minnesota Civil Rights Pioneer" (2001). Faculty Scholarship. Paper 61.http://open.mitchellhamline.edu/facsch/61
Lena Olive Smith: A Minnesota Civil Rights Pioneer
AbstractLena Olive Smith and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) created aspirited partnership in the public interest during the 1920s and 1930s. Throughout their long collaboration,this woman lawyer, her clients, and the Minneapolis branch of a national grassroots organization faced similarchallenges: to stay solvent, to end segregation and increase equality, and to live with dignity. This article isdivided into four sections. The first three roughly correspond with stages in Smith’s life and work. Part IIbriefly chronicles Smith’s first thirty six years, 1885 to 1921, as a single African-American woman in the northsearching for meaningful and remunerative work. It sketches the formation of the NAACP and the legal andsocial context that framed Smith’s life and the civil rights struggles that followed. Part III covers 1921 to 1926,from the time Smith became licensed to practice law to the year she developed as a leader in the MinneapolisNAACP. Part IV focuses on five events during Smith’s leadership of the Minneapolis NAACP. In theconclusion, the article outlines a few simple lessons for today’s lawyers and those working for social justice.
KeywordsLena Olive Smith, NAACP, Minnesota lawyers, African-American lawyers, women lawyers, social justice, raceand the law, civil rights
DisciplinesCivil Rights and Discrimination | Human Rights Law | Law and Gender | Law and Society | Legal History |Social Welfare Law
This article is available at Mitchell Hamline Open Access: http://open.mitchellhamline.edu/facsch/61
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