Civil Rights Movement Memphis women, Smith, Walk and Crenshaw, made a difference | Opinion

Memphis has long had legendary women pushing the city forward.

Among those is Ida B. Wells Barnett, the journalist, teacher and anti-lynching crusader whose life was threatened because of her views and actions.

Following in her footsteps were the women who made a difference in our city by taking the lead during the Civil Rights Movement.

Maxine Smith, educator and NAACP leader

Topping that list is Maxine Smith, who was a brilliant and gutsy Civil Rights activist, school board official and academic.

Born in Memphis in 1929, she graduated from Booker T. Washington High School and then earned a biology degree from Spelman College followed by a master’s degree in French from Middlebury College in Vermont.

In 1955, she married Vasco A. Smith Jr., a dentist who also became a civil rights leader and the first Black elected county commissioner in Memphis.

Maxine Smith taught at Prairie View A&M University in Texas and Florida A&M University before teaching at LeMoyne College in Memphis. Her fire for justice was ignited when in 1957 she was denied admission to graduate school at Memphis State University because she was Black. She became involved in the Memphis NAACP and in 1962 was named executive secretary of the branch. She continued in that role until she retired in 1995.

With her strong and strategic leadership, Smith helped to desegregate Memphis public schools in 1960; in 1961 she personally escorted the first Black children to and from their desegregated schools. Under her leadership, the Memphis NAACP advocated for civil rights with marches, sit-ins, voter registration drives, lawsuits and student boycotts.

In 1968 Maxine Smith served on the coordinating committee of the Memphis sanitation strike. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis to lead a march in support of the strike when he was assassinated.

Maxine Smith in 1971 was the first African American elected to the Memphis Board of Education. She held that position until her retirement in 1995. In1991 she was elected president of the Memphis Board of Education, and then-Tennessee Governor Ned McWherter appointed Smith to the Tennessee Board of Regents in 1994.

Smith, who died in 2013 at age 83, was an incredible Memphis leader whose dedication and skills were recognized nationwide. Still, there were other strong and memorable Memphis women leaders during the Civil Rights Movement who also made a significant contribution.

Dorothy Truitt Walk, pioneering supervisor of men

One was Dorothy Truitt Walk, who at age 24 was among the 35 LeMoyne College students who staged the 1960 sit-in at the Cossitt Library that opened doors to desegregation and changed the life of the city.

The students protested that Black people were not allowed to check out books at Cossitt and the main library but were limited to smaller inferior facilities, including a public library at LeMoyne College.

The students refused to leave Cossitt and were arrested. The judge dismissed the felony charge and found each student guilty of disorderly conduct and fined each $26. Because of their civil disobedience, the young people became heroes of the Movement but also pioneers in desegregating department stores, lunch counters, movie theaters, the Memphis Zoo, and the Brooks Museum of Art. Due to their brave efforts, city leaders soon opened libraries to all citizens, and department stores and movie theaters were integrated peacefully.

After Walk graduated from Melrose High School in 1955, she traveled to Chicago to attend college. However, she returned home when her grandfather was electrocuted on his job at the Southern Railroad. The railroad mistreated and threatened her family, setting off a spark that compelled her to never again sit on the sidelines.

Blacklisted after the sit-in, she could not get a teaching job in Memphis and ended up working at a small Black school in Arkansas. The Urban League referred her to an International Harvester job, where she became the company’s first female Black supervisor (supervising all White men).

Among other civic contributions, Dorothy Truitt Walk raised money to build the Orange Mound Community Center. She was a life-long member of Beulah Baptist Church nearby in Orange Mound. When she became upset with the city, she frequently wrote “thoughtful letters” to city officials and newspapers. Mayor Richard Hackett wrote back to her, inviting her to join one of the city’s boards or commissions. Walk served on the Memphis-Shelby County Landmarks Commission for 10 years. She also read newspapers on the Memphis Public Libraries non-commercial radio station for 14 years.

When she died in 2024 at age 88, Congressman Steve Cohen wrote that Walk “truly made a difference and made Memphis a better place.”

Cornelia Crenshaw, full-time community activist

Another outstanding woman of the Memphis Civil Rights Movement was Cornelia Crenshaw. After graduating from Booker T. Washington High School, she attended LeMoyne College. Over the years she worked as a physician’s receptionist, a public relations representative, and 27 years at the Memphis Housing Authority. She lost her job at MHA due to her pro-union advocacy for workers’ rights. At age 49, she became a full-time community activist who fought against poverty, systemic racism and political corruption.

Crenshaw headed the committee that brought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis to support the sanitation workers’ strike. She already was working to support the strikers and their families. It is reported that Dr. King always was transported around Memphis in Crenshaw’s 1968 Lincoln Continental. Crenshaw also is credited for encouraging the use of Robert Worsham’s poem “I Am A Man” as a rallying cry for the sanitation workers during the strike.

Crenshaw was known for her fashionable attire and hats and boldly speaking out at Memphis City Council meetings with the goal to bring about change. In 1969, she spent two nights in jail for disorderly conduct. She even protested Memphis, Light, Gas and Water by refusing to pay the city service garbage fee. Utilities at her “well appointed” home on Vance Avenue were turned off for 10 years before she left the home.

In 1980 Crenshaw filed a lawsuit to protest a utilities rate increase. Though she lost the lawsuit, her efforts resulted in MLGW accepting partial payments, which helped to prevent service cut-offs and high reconnection fees for low-income residents.

Crenshaw’s activism covered three decades. In 1997 the Memphis City Council renamed the Vance Avenue Library to honor her. Mrs. Crenshaw died in 1994 at age 77. Her tombstone reads: “One Worthy of Remembrance.”

Each of these pioneering Memphis women – Maxine Smith, Dorothy Truitt Walk, and Cornelia Crenshaw – is worthy of being honored and remembered for the roles they played in moving Memphis forward. Brava, ladies!

Lynn Norment, a columnist for The Commercial Appeal, is a former editor for Ebony Magazine.