Athens community member Fannie Smith stands in front of the Clarke Central High School Ceremonial Entrance on Jan. 12. Smith was one of the first Black students to attend CCHS, then-Athens High School, in 1963, one of her many experiences with the Civil Rights Movement as a child, including her family’s involvement with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “As a little girl, I attended our (NAACP) meetings at our church, and our church had hosted the meetings. My brother, at age seventeen, became the vice president of the Athens chapter (of the NAACP),” Smith said. “All of my interests were different from what a regular teenager’s were. And I thought it was the norm, that you went to (NAACP) meetings, and that you listened (to and) watched (the) news every day.” Photo by Iliana Tejada
From the experiences she witnessed during the Civil Rights Movement to her time as a student and teacher, Fannie Smith has combatted discrimination with determination.
A 17-year-old Fannie Smith sits on a patch of grass in Downtown Athens next to her younger sister and brother.
It’s 1963 and the siblings have just been arrested after taking part in a protest against the recent Birmingham, Ala. Children’s Crusade. But, as Smith was carted off to jail, it wasn’t fear she felt. It was determination to fight against the injustices being committed against Black people for as long as she’d been alive.
Smith was born in Oglethorpe County, Ga., but moved to Athens when her father, Rev. James Sims, a farmer, became determined to give his children a better education than he had received. That determination is what caused him to ask Smith to be part of the group of Black students who would be the first to attend the all-white Athens High School.
At school, Smith faced more isolation than discrimination from fellow students, but found joy in books gaining the education her father had wanted for her.
“When I taught my students, I defended them. I said, ‘Nobody messes with my students. I don’t care what race you are, I want our kids to get treated right,’”
— Fannie Smith,
Athens community member
Smith’s determination was fueled by information. She watched the news daily, seeing Black people throughout the South protesting and facing acts of violence that she had never seen in Athens, a city seemingly sheltered from violence.
Until she was walking home one day and saw a police officer beating a Black man. She stopped, the words “Why are you doing that to him?” leaping out of her mouth. The officer told her to move along, and she did, but with the sense that she wanted to do more.
That determination to help is what came to define Smith as a business teacher, a career she began in 1993 at CCHS and continued throughout the Clarke County School District until she retired in 2015.
“When I taught my students, I defended them. I said, ‘Nobody messes with my students. I don’t care what race you are, I want our kids to get treated right,’” Smith said.
