Mitchell Hamline School of Law
Mitchell Hamline Open Access
Faculty Scholarship
2001
Lena Olive Smith: A Minnesota Civil Rights
Pioneer
Ann Juergens
Mitchell Hamline School of Law, [email protected]
Publication Information
28 William Mitchell Law Review 397 (2001)
Repository Citation
Juergens, Ann, "Lena Olive Smith: A Minnesota Civil Rights Pioneer" (2001). Faculty Scholarship. Paper 61.
http://open.mitchellhamline.edu/facsch/61
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Mitchell Hamline
Open Access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by
an authorized administrator of Mitchell Hamline Open Access. For more
information, please contact [email protected].
Lena Olive Smith: A Minnesota Civil Rights Pioneer
Abstract
Lena Olive Smith and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) created a
spirited 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 similar
challenges: to stay solvent, to end segregation and increase equality, and to live with dignity. This article is
divided into four sections. The first three roughly correspond with stages in Smith’s life and work. Part II
briefly chronicles Smith’s first thirty six years, 1885 to 1921, as a single African-American woman in the north
searching for meaningful and remunerative work. It sketches the formation of the NAACP and the legal and
social 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 Minneapolis
NAACP. Part IV focuses on five events during Smith’s leadership of the Minneapolis NAACP. In the
conclusion, the article outlines a few simple lessons for today’s lawyers and those working for social justice.
Keywords
Lena Olive Smith, NAACP, Minnesota lawyers, African-American lawyers, women lawyers, social justice, race
and the law, civil rights
Disciplines
Civil 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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