He Marched for Freedom. Then He Stayed to Build: Remembering Jerome ‘Big Duck’ Smith

NEW ORLEANS — Jerome “Big Duck” Smith spent his life doing something that separates civil rights activists from civil rights legends: He did not stop fighting when the marches ended.

Smith marched against segregation. He rode into the Deep South as a Freedom Rider. He faced violence and arrest. He challenged institutions that treated Black people as second-class citizens.

But perhaps the most important chapter of Smith’s life began after the cameras left.

He stayed.

He stayed to teach children. He stayed to protect Black cultural traditions. He stayed to fight for neighborhood resources. He stayed to remind young people that the freedoms secured by an earlier generation carried a responsibility to the next.

Smith, a native son of New Orleans and longtime civil rights leader, died Aug. 21 at age 87 following a battle with cancer. His death brought an end to a life that stretched from the most dangerous days of the modern Civil Rights Movement into decades of community activism and cultural preservation.

New Orleans will honor that life during two days of memorial services Sept. 11-12.

A visitation is scheduled from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 11, at Gallier Hall, 545 St. Charles Ave.

A celebration of life will begin with visitation at 8 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 12, at the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts, 1419 Basin St. The service begins at 10 a.m.

But Smith's story deserves to be remembered as more than the announcement of a homegoing.

It is the story of a man who understood that freedom had to be lived after it was won.

The fight began early

Smith was not introduced to the struggle for racial equality as an adult.

His resistance to segregation began when he was a child.

At 10, Smith challenged the racial order on a New Orleans streetcar by removing a divider that separated Black and white passengers.

It was an early indication of the courage that would define him.

As a young man, he became involved with the Congress of Racial Equality, participating in demonstrations, sit-ins and other actions challenging segregation.

Then came the Freedom Rides.

In 1961, Smith joined other activists who traveled through the segregated South to challenge laws and customs that prevented Black Americans from exercising their constitutional rights in interstate transportation.

The Freedom Riders knew the danger before they boarded the buses.

They went anyway.

Smith was among those attacked in Mississippi, where Freedom Riders faced brutal violence from segregationists determined to stop the movement.

The experience could have caused him to retreat.

Instead, it deepened his commitment.

His battlefield changed

What makes Smith's legacy particularly important is what happened after the most visible battles of the Civil Rights Movement.

He did not define his life's work by the protests of the 1950s and 1960s.

He expanded it.

Smith came to understand that civil rights included more than access to public accommodations or the right to vote. It included whether Black children had safe places to play, whether young people understood their history and whether communities maintained control of their cultural traditions.

That philosophy became visible through his work with young people and New Orleans' distinctive Black cultural traditions.

In 1968, Smith helped establish Tambourine and Fan, an organization focused on exposing young people to the history and culture of New Orleans.

He became an advocate for traditions that had survived generations of discrimination, including brass bands, second-line culture and the traditions of Black Masking Indians.

For Smith, culture was not separate from the struggle for freedom.

It was evidence that Black New Orleans had survived.

And survival, he believed, had to be taught.

He fought for children, too

One of Smith's most enduring contributions came through his fight for community recreational space.

As development transformed New Orleans neighborhoods, Smith organized around the need for children to have places where they could gather, play and grow.

His activism helped lead to the creation of Hunter's Field, a community space that became important to generations of New Orleanians.

That work revealed another dimension of Smith's activism.

The Freedom Rider who once risked his life challenging segregation had become an elder fighting for something just as fundamental: a place for children to belong.

His activism had evolved, but its purpose had not.

It was still about dignity.

It was still about opportunity.

And it was still about making sure Black communities had a voice in determining their own future.

A bridge between generations

Smith's importance to New Orleans cannot be measured solely by the number of demonstrations in which he participated or the historical photographs in which he appeared.

His greater contribution may have been his ability to connect generations.

He belonged to a generation that experienced segregation firsthand, yet he devoted much of his later life to young people who had never known the world he fought to change.

That placed Smith in a unique position.

He could tell young New Orleanians what freedom had cost because he had paid part of that price himself.

He could explain why cultural traditions mattered because he had watched communities fight to preserve them.

And he could challenge young people to become participants in their communities rather than spectators.

That is the difference between remembering history and inheriting it.

New Orleans remembers

U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, who has spoken publicly about Smith's contributions, described him as a freedom fighter, mentor and servant of the community.

Carter's words capture why Smith's passing has resonated so deeply in New Orleans.

Smith was not simply a person who participated in history.

He became part of the city's institutional memory.

His generation fought to open doors.

Smith spent the rest of his life asking what Black people would do with those doors once they were open.

His answer was service.

Teach the children.

Preserve the culture.

Protect the neighborhood.

Remember the struggle.

And keep moving.

That may ultimately be the most fitting way to understand the man affectionately known as “Big Duck.”

He marched for freedom when marching was dangerous.

He stood when standing came with consequences.

And when the marches were over, he stayed in the community and continued doing the work.

That is why his Sept. 11-12 memorial services should be more than moments of mourning.

They should be moments of instruction.

New Orleans will gather to celebrate a man who understood that a movement cannot survive on memories alone. Somebody has to carry its lessons forward.

Jerome “Big Duck” Smith spent nearly nine decades doing exactly that.

He marched for freedom. Then he stayed to build.

And now, a city he served must decide how it will carry his work forward.