About the Episode
In this episode, hosted by Dr. Priscilla Martinez and Zac Price, we tackle civil rights and labor activism in San Antonio and South Texas in the 1960s and 70s through the life and activism of Father Sherrill J. Smith
From witnessing the historic events at Selma to coming home to San Antonio, and advocating for farmworkers rights, Smith was an overall activist who advocated strongly for civil and labor rights for people of color in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.
Listen in as we share a bit of Father Smith's story!
IMAGE CREDIT: René A. Guzman, "Before downtown San Antonio Catholic church became ‘St. Joske’s,’ St. Joseph Catholic Church was one of just a few buildings near the Alamo," San Antonio Express News, 7 July 2021. https://www.expressnews.com/lifestyle/article/downtown-San-Antonio-Catholic-church-st-joskes-16298793.php
“It was a unique experience to be in the Deep South, in the heart of it and to hear and touch at first hand these people who were making this history. And to feel that we were a part of it, at least for a few days…I consider that my personal experience and involvement in the thing as one of the highlights in my life as a man and as an American citizen and as a priest" - Sherrill J. Smith
Father Sherrill Smith spent much of his tenure in San Antonio serving the parish surrounding Saint Joseph's Downtown church, located near The Alamo.
IMAGE CREDIT: René A. Guzman, "Before downtown San Antonio Catholic church became ‘St. Joske’s,’ St. Joseph Catholic Church was one of just a few buildings near the Alamo," San Antonio Express News, 7 July 2021. https://www.expressnews.com/lifestyle/article/downtown-San-Antonio-Catholic-church-st-joskes-16298793.php
QUOTE CITATION: Sherrill J. Smith, Interview with Lyle C. Brown, 17 August 1972, Transcript. Baylor University Institute for Oral History, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, 200.
Photo by Bruce Davidson, taken at the Selma March of 1965 for the Saturday Evening Post. "I just hat to put my feet on this highway," Smith said, "I just had to march."
IMAGE CREDIT: "The Meaning of Selma," MSS-SMITH-1993, Sherrill Smith Collection, RB/2021/168, f. 25, Archdiocese of San Antonio Archives and Records Management, San Antonio, Texas.
Sources & Recommended Readings
Behnken, Brian D. “Civil Rights, Mexican American.” In The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 24: Race, edited by Thomas C. Holt, Laurie B. Green, and Charles Reagan Wilson (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013): 45–49, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9781469607245_holt.14.
Burson, George. “The Black Civil Rights Movement.” OAH Magazine of History 2, no. 1 (1986): 35–40. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25162501.
Ellis, Tom. “Letter to Sherrill Smith,” 7 February 1967. MSS-SMITH-1993, Sherrill Smith Collection, RB/2021/168, f. 23, Archdiocese of San Antonio Archives and Record Management, San Antonio, Texas.
Fairclough, Adam. “Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Quest for Nonviolent Social Change.” Phylon (1960-) 47, no. 1 (1986): 1–15. https://doi.org/10.2307/274690.
Flores, Rebecca, Juanita Valdez-Cox, and James C. Harrington, “The Farmworkers of Texas,” in Mexican American Civil Rights in Texas, edited by Robert Brischetto and J. Richard Avena, (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2021): 301-331
Lucey, Robert E. “Exhibit No. 25: Copy of Testimony Given by the Most Reverend Robert E, Lucey, Archbishop of San Antonio before the Senate Subcommittee on Migratory Labor,” Hearing before the United States Commission on Civil Rights: Hearing held in San Antonio, Texas, December 9-14, 1968. Accessed 27 February 2024, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002680141&seq=10.
Smith, Sherrill J. Interview with Lyle C. Brown, 17 August 1972, Transcript. Baylor University Institute for Oral History, Baylor University, Waco, Texas.
Some Notes on the Sources:
Father Sherrill Smith's full interview series is available in transcript form online at the Institute for Oral History at Baylor University.
Father Smith's personal papers are housed as a manuscript collection at the Archdioceses of San Antonio's archives.
A special thank you to Head Archivist Elvira Kisser for her help in navigating this collection.