The Heart or the Pen?

During the LES Studies course this semester, we have started talking about whether or not Lillian Smith deals with class in her examinations of the psychological effects of racism. We have talked about Smith’s commentary on the wedges that wealthy whites, those in power, drive between individuals beneath them and the ways that these wedges, coupled with the rhetoric of demagogues, serves to sustain white supremacy. We’ve talked about the aid she provided to individuals, both Black and white, in the community where she lived and beyond. However, we also notice that she sees racist thought as an individual and moral problem. In order to build a better world, for Smith, one must cure the individual and the system will follow.

Writing about Smith’s work with the Southern Conference for Human Welfare (SCHW), and notably her falling out with James Dombrowski and the organization, Randall Patton notes that “Lillian Smith advocated an intensely psychological view of the race problem.” Smith served on the SCHW’s board of directors, but in 1945 she resigned, arguing that the organization did not have adequate representation on the board and elsewhere. Patton delves into the split within American liberalism during the mid-twentieth century, and he argues that Smith’s departure from the SCHW, along with others events, highlights this spilt. Patton notes that both sides of the split “agreed that racial discrimination…