Jerome Smith, a civil rights leader of uncommon courage, was called ‘Big Duck’ for a reason
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From the Article
Reported by MS NOW. The paragraphs below are the opening of that article, reproduced word for word — not a summary, and not the whole piece.
A leader of the New Orleans sit-in movement, Smith became a kind of evangelist for the Congress of Racial Equality during the spring 1961 Freedom Rides whose participants demanded desegregated accommodations at bus stations in the South.
When an old Black woman saw 10-year-old Jerome Smith defiantly tear down the Jim Crow divider separating Black and white passengers on a New Orleans streetcar, she slapped the young Black boy, and as she dragged him off, she vowed to the fuming white conductor and passengers that she’d beat him good. Then, after she had safely pulled him out of the sight of white folks, her tears flowed.
“ Never, ever stop ,” she said. “I’m proud of you. Don’t you ever quit.”
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“many very, very accomplished people”