Maxine Smith
American academic and civil rights activist (1929–2013)
Maxine (Atkins) Smith (October 31, 1929 — April 26, 2013) born in Memphis, Tennessee, United States, was an academic, civil rights activist, and school board official.
Smith's leadership in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and her involvement with educational planning at both the local and state levels in Tennessee, enabled her to support the American Civil Rights Movement and advance school desegregation.
Personal life and education
Smith was the youngest of three children of Joseph and Georgia Rounds Atkins. In 1945, at age 15, Smith graduated Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis. She earned a bachelor's degree in biology from Spelman College in Atlanta in 1949, and a master's degree in French from Middlebury College in Vermont.
In 1955 she married Vasco A. Smith Jr., a dentist, civil rights leader, and the first black county commissioner in Memphis. Smith gave birth to a son in 1956.
Career and civil rights involvement
Smith became assistant professor of French at Prairie View A&M University in Prairie View, Texas, and then at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida. Smith then taught briefly at LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis, Tennessee.
In 1957, Smith applied to pursue graduate studies at the University of Memphis, but was denied admission because she was black.
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