A visitation at Gallier Hall Friday celebrated the life of Jerome “Big Duck” Smith, a civil rights pioneer and Freedom Rider, whose funeral services are set for Saturday. He died last month at 87.
From 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., city officials, law enforcement personnel, family, friends and community members flowed in and out of the building across from Lafayette Square, where Smith’s remains were on display in an open-casket viewing.
Cleavon Williams, who has been part of Smith’s nonprofit youth organization Tamborine and Fan since he was a child, attended the visitation and spoke to WDSU.
“He was always a mentor, father figure to me and thousands of others,” Williams said.
Tamborine and Fan focuses on drug use prevention, mentorship, and education for young people in New Orleans.
“He was a pioneer,” Williams said. “He’s a legend, and just to see these hundreds of people coming in and out of this viewing really confirms the legend that he is and was, and the most important thing is we as the alumni, we’re going to keep this journey going.”
Williams remembers Smith leading by example in protest and civil disobedience, specifically when protesting a theater in downtown New Orleans.
“We did a protest on Canal Street, myself with the day camp,” Williams said. “I was the director of the camp, and we had over 500 kids, 200 student workers, and our mission was to not be removed no matter what. So, we pretty much shut down the entire Canal Street at broad daylight, 12 noon, because we were standing for what was righteous.”
Smith, a New Orleans native, was one of the original Freedom Riders who protested segregation in public transportation during the 1960s.
State Sen. Royce Duplessis attended the visitation Friday. He now serves the communities in New Orleans where Smith spent much of his life.
“Mr. Jerome Smith was so much bigger than just New Orleans. He was so much bigger than just Treme and the culture. He helped advance civil rights and justice for the United States of America. He made this world a better place,” Duplessis said. “It was not popular . Sometimes doing the unpopular thing is what’s required of us in order for us to do the right thing.”
Kevin Smith, one of Jerome Smith’s mentees, said he is dedicated to continuing Smith’s work, now running his own youth mentorship program in South Carolina.
“Jerome Smith, there’ll never be another,” Kevin said. “He’s a unique blueprint, and so I’m trying to reflect the same thing, keep the spirit alive in what I do in his name. Because just remember, somebody has to see somebody, a boy got to see a man in order to rise up, and so he was the man in my life.”
Smith’s funeral services will be held Saturday at the Mahalia Jackson Theater, with a short visitation beginning at 8 a.m. and the service starting at 10 a.m. According to his obituary, three of Smith’s children and one grandson preceded him in death. He is survived by four children, his “devoted companion” Cynthia, and nine grandchildren.
READ MORE:New Orleans honors late civil rights leader Jerome Smith
