Story Outline
Jerome Smith’s poetic voice tells the story of how his and Bobby Kennedy’s paths crossed eight times between 1960 and 1968, including their legendary confrontation at the Kennedy -Baldwin meeting.
These eight events are referred to as: The McComb Attack, The 1960 Presidential Election, The Montgomery to Jackson Freedom Ride, The Kennedy-Baldwin Meeting, The Freedom Vote, The Freedom Summer Murders, The Delta Awakening and Bobby Kennedy’s Assassination. Jerome’s interviews also stitch the story together with deeply personal understandings of their Backstories and what transpired during and after these eight pivotal events.
The McComb Attack
On November 29, 1961, Jerome led a group of six Freedom Riders from New Orleans to McComb to test the Kennedy administration's enforcement of integrated inter-state travel. The Freedom Riders were met by an angry white mob. Jerome barely escaped with his life.
Bleeding from the head in a nearby cafe, Jerome called the Attorney General. He vowed to return to the bus station and demanded support from The Kennedy administration.
Bobby answered the call but rather than provide federal protection, he had the bus station closed. This was the first time the two men spoke but it was neither the first nor the last time their paths crossed...
Backstory - Childhood
For as long as Jerome can remember, his mother was teaching him to stand up against injustice and overcome his speech impediment.
"'Five cents for two words' the other children would tease me," Jerome remembers. "I would play by the wharf and utter ancestral sounds in a whisper to the waves... The water wouldn't make fun of my stutter."
When Bobby was 6 yrs old he threw himself into the ocean to try to prove he could swim. After he was fished out, his brother Jack said , "That took either a lot of guts or no sense at all."
Backstory - Youth
Through his family and community, Jerome was immersed in the beauty and pride of the Black Indian Carnival tradition. Bobby saw his two older brothers join the war effort against the Nazis.
"My involvement with the Indian costume brought me to the civil rights struggle. Black folk doing something of excellence... Making the cape, that was my job... The police would try to run us off the street. My first encounter with police dogs was not in Mississippi. They used to try to destroy us because we was so beautiful but you don't bow. You don't back down."
Bobby saw the roots of the fighting Irish flourish in America. He admired his older brothers. "Next to Joe and John I'm the toughest Irishman that lives, which makes me the toughest man that lives." Bobby boasted to a friend. Jack returned home a war hero. Joe died flying a plane full of dynamite to enemy lines.
Backstory -
Witnessing WWII
On the wharf where Jerome played, he witnessed African American soldiers returning home. They were greeted as heroes but were still relegated to the back of the New Orleans street-cars.
Still a teenager, but eager to join the war effort, Bobby served on the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., named after his martyred eldest brother.
Backstory - Civil Rights & McCarthyism
While studying at University, Jerome also worked on the docks and witnessed first hand the power of unions to organize and improve conditions for workers. But he questioned why segregation existed even within the unions.
Bobby went to work for the fanatical Senator Joe McCarthy as counsel for the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The Committee wrongly persecuted union members and many innocent African Americans .
Backstory - Two Fighters
The son of a long shoreman who was notoriously "good with his hands", Jerome trained in the boxing ring. He was an able fighter.
Running his brothers election campaigns, Bobby gained a reputation for being ruthless. Outside the office, he was known for getting into fist fights.
The 1960 Presidential Election
Jerome joined the Congress on Racial Equality (C.O.R.E.) as Jack Kennedy was campaigning for president.
Despite his boxing prowess, Jerome embraced Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence. On September 9, 1960 Jerome participated in a protest against the segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in his home town. He was arrested and sent to Parish prison. In the civil rights movement, Jerome began to find his voice.
While Jerome served his time in Parish prison, Jack Kennedy was elected president. After running the successful presidential campaign for his brother, Bobby accepted the appointment of Attorney General. All Civil rights issues would now land on his desk.
The Montgomery to Jackson Freedom Ride
Jerome became a freedom rider, trying to push the Kennedy administration to enforce desegregation in inter-state travel.
When Bobby Kennedy concurred with the Governor of Mississippi allowing the Freedom Riders to be imprisoned...
... Jerome was sentenced to 6 months in Parchment penitentiary .
The Kennedy-Baldwin Meeting
On May 24th 1963, a group that included James Baldwin, Harry Belafonte, Kenneth Clark, Lorraine Hansberry, Clarence Jones and Lena Horne, gathered at the Kennedy’s apartment overlooking Central Park. Bobby served the group a light buffet.
At first, Bobby tried to impress them with the progress the administration was making on civil rights. The group’s reaction was muted and short lived. One stammering voice shattered the calm...The bruised and abused Freedom Rider told Bobby that speaking to him made him nauseous. He said he would “rather die than fight in a war for the United States”. To Bobby, the brother of a martyred war hero, refusing to fight for your country was paramount to treason. He said as much and literally turned his back on the young man. That was when the whole group rose up against Bobby. Lorraine Hansberry said, “Mr. Kennedy, you have a great many learned people in this room but the only person you need to listen to is that young man right there.” That young man was Jerome Smith…
… As Jerome’s frustration grew and he spoke at length, from the heart, about the freedom movement, about his struggle to remain non-violent, about black men being castrated in America, Bobby was not only rendered speechless, he was literally shaking. The volatile meeting lasted nearly five hours. Kenneth Clark called it the most intense experience of his life.
Consequences of the Kennedy-Baldwin Meeting
Within a few weeks of their meeting, it was Bobby and only Bobby, who pushed the President to make his historic nation-wide address on civil rights. In the speech, President Kennedy called civil rights a “moral issue” for the first time.
Perhaps even more remarkable, the president compared front-line civil rights workers like Jerome on an equal footing with American soldiers serving their country overseas.
On October 15, Bobby introduced the civil rights bill of 1963 to Congress.
The Freedom Vote
Bobby and Jack threw the government’s support behind many civil rights initiatives including the Voter Education Project ( the V.E.P.)
The V.E.P. was a way of funnelling money towards voter registration drives in Mississippi, where African Americans were not only being denied the right to vote but were being terrorized and murdered for trying to organize.
Jerome returned to Mississippi and helped organize the Freedom Vote campaign. He displayed an exceptional gift for working with children and young people who proved to be a major force in registering nearly 80,000 African Americans in the freedom vote.
While community organizing all over Mississippi, Jerome formed a special bond with a ten-year old activist named Gene Young. It was during this time that one of Jerome’s unique tactics for promoting voter registration was born.
"If the word vote is identified with betterment... betterment in your condition... even if you don't vote but you are speaking about it... you will encourage others to vote..." - Jerome Smith
Freedom Summer Murders
In preparation for the "Freedom Summer” of 1964, Jerome spoke at a rally to raise funds for the purchase of 3 station wagons to support voter registration drives in Mississippi.
When three of his fellow civil rights workers went missing in one of these station wagons, and J. Edgar Hoover suggested they may have “kidnapped themselves”, Bobby took the case away from the local FBI.
On the run for his own life, Jerome was smuggled out of Jackson in the back of another station wagon by the movement's greatest get away driver.
Bobby sent in hundreds of federal agents to search for the missing men. Jerome was already on the ground looking for his fellow activists.
When the bodies of the young men were finally discovered,Bobby's office would be the only one to lay charges against the conspirators.
But their bodies were not the only ones discovered in the search. What Jerome found that summer would haunt him for years.
The Delta Awakening
In 1967 Bobby visited the poorest parts of Mississippi. He brought the attention of the nation to the plight of the most destitute African Americans. The child poverty he witnessed changed his understanding of the United States once more. In Mississippi, Bobby was in fact retracing Jerome’s steps where he had been working to end segregation and disenfranchisement for so many years.
Bobby Kennedy's Assassination
When Bobby was assassinated a few months later, Jerome dropped to his knees. "It was a great loss to the movement." he said. That same year a mystery person left Jerome some money.
Jerome bought a building and established "Tamborine and Fan" a community organization which utilizes the potential for black pride inherint in Indian Carnival traditions and teaches the history and culture of the civil rights movement to children.
The Voting Gift
The story of Jerome Smith and Bobby Kennedy provides an antidote for voter apathy. Jerome’s unique tactic for promoting voter registration needs to be discovered. This story proves that when you become politically involved in your community and you have the courage to speak truth to power, you can make a difference.