Introduction of C. Fraser Smith at the Central Library on Thursday, June 12, 2008

His New Book: “Here Lies Jim Crow—Civil Rights in Maryland”

This has been a fascinating week of focus on civil rights for my wife and me.  Last Saturday, we had the pleasure of traveling to New York to see the fine actor, Laurence Fishburne, perform in a one man show, “Thurgood” at the Booth Theatre.  I highly recommend to you the play about Baltimore’s own Thurgood Marshall. There are multiple references to our town and its place in the civil rights movement.  And today, I have been given the honor and pleasure of introducing our guest speaker who brings with him his new book on Maryland civil rights history, “Here Lies Jim Crow”. 

Now to paraphrase Mark Twain, “rumors of the death of racial segregation itself may have been greatly exaggerated” on occasion.  But that is not what my friend, Fraser Smith, is announcing here with this book.  In fact, I’m sure he would agree that you need look no further than the nation’s public schools, for example, to see segregation is alive and well.  But Jim Crow himself is dead, that is, the system of legal segregation (America’s apartheid) has passed on. 

C. Fraser Smith was kind enough to chronicle Jim Crow’s demise after sifting through 300 oral histories of residents of our state wisely captured by the Maryland Historical Society.   Smith takes these many stories and weaves them into one—the birth and death of Jim Crow brought to you by our own state of Maryland.  He will tell some of that story tonight.  You might want to get his book to learn more of this fascinating story. 

C. Fraser Smith, our master storyteller, was born on the first day of African American History month in what was then Kodak country, Rochester, NY.  His father was a law book salesman; his mother was born in Canada.  He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina with a BA in English.  He served three years in the military.

Fraser is the recipient of many awards in journalism, including from the United Press International and the Associated Press.  He has been an editorial writer and columnist with the Baltimore Sun since 1999.

One of my personal favorites of his Sun reporting was his 1980 series on the “shadow government” in Baltimore City, a little known bank created for development and run by Mayor William Donald Schaefer to finance the “renaissance” in Baltimore.  The series was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

With the presentation of the book tonight, this brings the total number of books he’s authored to three.  It is no wonder that such a basketball devotee would pick the University of Maryland’s basketball star, the late Len Bias, as the subject of his first book, “Lenny, Lefty and the Chancellor”.  Perhaps in atonement for his shadow government expose series, his second book is a fascinating biography of Mayor, Governor, State Comptroller Schaefer.  That book was fun to read.  I learned a lot from it (although, I must confess publicly, I was a little disappointed not to get a mention in it for the night I debated Mr. Schaefer on national TV live in 1981 about the effectiveness of the city’s renaissance for the poor).  Once again in atonement, perhaps, he includes me in his latest book.  I feel better.

Tonight’s presentation is brought to you by the Enoch Pratt Free Library, one of the best library systems in the country and The Johns Hopkins University Press, the publisher of Fraser’s  books on Schaefer and Jim Crow in Maryland and the oldest university press in America (and one of the best).

There is a famous Hollywood quote, which I’ve heard attributed to comedian Red Skelton about the very well attended 1958 funeral of Harry Cohn, whom many considered a tyrant of a president of the Columbia Pictures Studio.  Standing outside the standing room only service, Skelton is supposed to have quipped, “Give the people what they want to see and they’ll come out for it every time.”  Well, this is certainly not a funeral… but Fraser Smith is here tonight to tell us some stories of who contributed what to Jim Crow’s death.  He’s come to bury Jim Crow, not to praise him, I’m sure.  Thanks for coming out.  Please welcome Sun columnist, National Public Radio station, WYPR’s political analyst and one of Baltimore’s best storytellers, C. Fraser Smith.

Ralph E. Moore, Jr.

June 12, 2008