
Adults · History
Jerome Smith: Man of the People
A collection of essays that discusses Smith’s contributions to the civil rights movement and the city of New Orleans via the Tambourine and Fan organization. With a foreword by Kalamu ya Salaam and edited by Freddi Williams Evans, contributing essayists include Raphael Cassimere, Ph.D., Jarvis DeBerry, Randal Maurice Jelks, Ph.D., Zada Johnson, Ph.D., Joyce Jackson, Ph.D., and Freddye Hill, Ph.D.
Drawing from over sixty years of archival documents, media sources, and interviews with members of New Orleans CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and Tambourine and Fan, writers discuss Smith’s civil rights activism in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, parts of Mississippi and New York as well as his community-based, youth-centered activism in New Orleans. Of most significance is Smith’s direct contribution to the book. His numerous interviews with writers, both individually and collectively, from 2021 to 2025, provided clarity and insight that otherwise would have been lost. As one of the longest living activists from the civil rights era, Smith’s participation in this book project proved rare and priceless.






