When a giant falls, how do we honor him?

When a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound? When giants in our community fall, do we truly see and feel the blow? When we feel it, how should we respond?

That question has spiraled in my head after the passing of Civil Rights legend and community leader Jerome “Big Duck” Smith, who died at age 87 last month. In New Orleans, many of us have had the honor and privilege to walk alongside the very giants whose shoulders we stand on.

As U.S. Rep. Troy Carter said, in one of many official condolences: “We lost a true giant. We’ve lost a very selfless, iconic figure. He will be sorely missed.”

Yet the possibility of a well-rounded education that teaches children about Smith’s legacy is bleak for the next generation of New Orleanians. Local Black history is rarely taught in the schools so we must rely on elders, museums and college education — if you are afforded the opportunity. 

On a state level Gov. Jeff Landry has banned the teaching of critical race theory in Louisiana K-12 public schools. At the national level, this administration has intentionally been erasing Black history across the country. Even some of the policies that Jerome Smith helped to create through his work with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) have been dismantled by this administration. Last year, President Donald Trump told federal agencies to stop enforcing core tenets of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. 

Making history despite beatings,  arrests and indignities

Without the audacity and determination of our ancestors like Smith, many of the rights we exercise every day would not exist. 

“I just wanted to have lunch with my friends,” he would say about the sit-ins he participated in — most notably what’s considered the city’s first sit-in, at F.W. Woolworth’s Department store at Canal and North Rampart Streets in 1960, when all seven protestors, five Black and two white, were arrested. 

A week later, four other activists who became known as the “CORE Four” — Cecil Carter Jr., Oretha Castle (later Haley), Rudy Lombard and Sydney “Lanny” Goldfinch — were arrested at a sit-in down the street at the McCrory’s Five and Dime. The four young people, students at Dillard, Southern University at New Orleans, Xavier, and Tulane, respectively — challenged their convictions in that case, Louisiana v. Lombard, and won at the U.S. Supreme Court.

There was no law forbidding desegregated seating. But both Mayor deLesseps “Chep” Morrison and NOPD Supt. Joseph Giarrusso were determined to enforce Jim Crow segregation.

Years afterward, Rudy Lombard said that people from New Orleans CORE had “a certain confidence that came from the city itself. They came out of a culture that was so rich: they knew that everything that was unique in the city could be traced to the Black presence.”

A lasting imprint on the culture of New Orleans will be Big Duck’s work with the Tamborine & Fan organization, nurturing and teaching New Orleans culture to children. From the summer camps run by Smith, many New Orleans kids from my generation knew about his Civil Rights activism, of him confronting Bobby Kennedy, riding on Freedom Ride buses and being beaten in McComb, Mississippi.

Until young people like Smith challenged the status quo, Black and white people could not sit at the same food counter, ride the same buses and trains or attend the same schools. Smith and fellow CORE members picketed on Canal Street for nearly two years — 735 days — because Black people were not being hired by local businesses except as janitors.

Think about that. New Orleans store owners would rather endure pickets out front for two years than hire Black people as clerks and salespeople. And city leaders took it upon themselves to enforce segregation. 

After the first sit-in, at Woolworth’s, both the mayor and the police chief made public statements condemning it. “I have today directed the superintendent of police that no additional sit-in demonstrations or so-called peaceful picketing outside retail stores by sit-in demonstrators or their sympathizers will be permitted,” Morrison said.

What do we owe his memory?

Before Smith laid in state at Gallier Hall on Friday, Mayor Helena Moreno and our City Council posed at the top of the steps, paying homage to him. District Attorney Jason Williams spoke at his funeral. Some might say that shows progress. Maybe it even tells us that some of our current leaders concur with some of Smith’s revolutionary mindset.

Others might note that Smith was a man of action. To our officials who respected him and how he changed history, we need to know what action you are taking, or plan to take, to follow in our giant’s footsteps.

How many people remain in our city’s jail unnecessarily, as the population rises higher and higher? Study it in his honor and find ways to release those who do not endanger public safety.

How can the city cultivate a New Orleans Recreation Department that works, has the staff and budget to repair its pools, fields, and infrastructure, and consistently creates free, innovative programs for the children of our city? Make this a reality, for the man who oversaw the Tremé Community Center and Hunter’s Field.

As our city gets more and more expensive, make it a priority to create more affordable housing, to allow the city to retain its artists, musicians, chefs, Black-masking Indians and social aid and pleasure club members — who created the city’s Black identity and shaped Smith’s “no hum bow” mindset.

A related question: How many musicians and artists in the city work long hours without a livable wage or job security? We must support the wellbeing of those who represent the cultural currency of the city, the same people we put on display during every big event in New Orleans.

How many children in this city struggle to read and write on their grade level? How many miss school and are automatically cut from school rolls after 10 or 15 consecutive unexcused missed days, to follow NOLA Public Schools district policy? We can point fingers at parents, but Smith always asked the larger community to be responsible too. Scrutinize these issues in his honor and find ways to support and stand up for children like he would have. 

How many residents are overwhelmed each month by sky-high utility bills? Study it to honor him and find ways to regulate the billing of Entergy New Orleans and Delta Utilities, so that we don’t have some of the highest household energy burdens in the nation.

Finally, how can you lend your support to the Tamborine & Fan organization? To carry on Smith’s legacy, we need the vision of those he molded and encouraged over generations.

After a weekend spent celebrating the life of Jerome Smith, the reality has begun to set in: We don’t know if or when another giant will rise up. 

We must challenge ourselves and those in power to continue to be ducklings of Smith and to create a New Orleans where all can thrive.

Though we have laid Big Duck to rest, his spirit lives on in New Orleans and its people, shaped by the city’s Black culture and its deep history. Only action will show whether we can live up what he infused in each of us.

The deadline for in-person and by-mail registration is October 5th in Louisiana. Be sure to check your status and make your plan to vote, in honor of Smith’s lifelong work to get people registered and able to vote. Refer to the Hip Hop Caucus’ RespectMyVote.com for more information.