McNeill Smith Papers, 1937-1999

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Summary

Creator:
Smith, McNeill.
Abstract:

John McNeill Smith Jr. (1918-2011), a white attorney, state legislator, and teacher, practiced law in Greensboro, N.C. He was attorney for University of North Carolina students in the Speaker Ban case in 1963; co-counsel, 1958-1962, for Junius Irving Scales, a Communist Party member charged with advocating violent overthrow of the government; and negotiator during the 1960 lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro. Smith served as state representative and then senator, 1971-1978. After an unsuccessful campaign for the United States Senate in 1978, he continued to practice law and taught constitutional law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The papers, 1937-1999, of McNeill Smith document his career as a lawyer and as a North Carolina state legislator. Political papers, which make up the bulk of the collection, include materials relating to Smith's tenure in the North Carolina legislature, political campaigns, and other political activities. Many of these items relate to environmental legislation, education, and tax reform. Law firm materials include papers relating to Smith's activities in civil rights, the 1963 Speaker Ban Law case, and academic freedom and freedom of speech in general, but there are only a small number of items about his defense of Junius Irving Scales. There are also materials relating to Smith's participation in professional organizations, including the American Bar Association, the North Carolina Bar Association, and the North Carolina Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and in civic and religious organizations, especially the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce and the Methodist Church. Also included are writings; items relating to his helping Estonia in its legal preparations for self-governance after the break-up of the Soviet Union; World War II materials relating to Smith's service in the United States Navy as a bomb disposal officer; papers from Robeson County, N.C., schools and the University of North Carolina documenting school life and alumni activities; and personal papers, including family correspondence and financial materials.

Extent:
44,500 items (73.5 linear feet)
Language:
English.
Library Catalog Link:
View UNC library catalog record for this item

Background

Biographical / historical:

John McNeill Smith Jr., a white attorney, state legislator, and teacher, was born in Rowland, Robeson County, N.C., on 9 April 1918. Smith was graduated from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1938 and received his law degree from Columbia University in 1941. After World War II service in the Navy as a bomb disposal officer in North Africa, the Middle East, China, Burma, and India, Smith returned to North Carolina to practice law in Greensboro with Smith, Moore, Smith, Schell, and Hunter, a firm that became one of the largest in the state.

Smith became known as an advocate of human rights and equal justice, frequently taking cases that other lawyers refused. In 1963, he was the attorney for University of North Carolina students in the Speaker Ban case. From 1958 to 1962, Smith was co-counsel for Junius Irving Scales, a Communist Party member who was charged with advocating the violent overthrow of the United States government. In 1960, Smith was the negotiator between black and white leaders during the lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro. He continued acting as a negotiator in the desegregation of hotels, motels, and sit-down restaurants.

In 1970, Smith was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives, and, in 1972, to the North Carolina Senate. From 1971 to 1978, he developed a reputation as a liberal lawmaker, supporting such issues as tax reform, education, energy, consumer issues, creation of a state Department of Transportation, tougher laws against drunk drivers, and consolidation of the University of North Carolina system. In 1978, Smith unsuccessfully ran for the United States Senate, losing in the Democratic primary. Smith built his campaign around defeating incumbent Jesse Helms. After his defeat, Smith returned to civil litigation and also taught constitutional law at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In 1989-1990, Smith was ranked as one of the nation's most influential lawyers by the National Law Journal for his work in establishing the North Carolina Civil Liberties Union. From 1992 to 1993, Smith traveled to Estonia to help the Soviet republic in its legal preparations to become self governing.

Scope and content:

The papers, 1937-1999, of McNeill Smith, a white North Carolinian originally from Rowland, Robeson County, N.C., document his career as a lawyer and as a North Carolina state legislator. Political papers, which make up the bulk of the collection, include materials relating to Smith's tenure during the 1970s in the North Carolina House of Representatives and North Carolina Senate, political campaigns, and other political activities. Many of these items relate to environmental legislation, education, and tax reform. Law firm materials include papers relating to Smith's activities in civil rights, the 1963 Speaker Ban Law case at the University of North Carolina, and academic freedom and freedom of speech in general, but there are only a small number of items about his defense of Communist Party member Junius Irving Scales, 1958-1962. There are also materials relating to Smith's participation in professional organizations, including the American Bar Association, the North Carolina Bar Association, and the North Carolina Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and in civic and religious organizations, especially the Greensboro, N.C., Chamber of Commerce and the Methodist Church. Also included are writings; items relating to his helping Estonia in its legal preparations for self-governance after the break-up of the Soviet Union; World War II materials relating to Smith's service in the United States Navy as a bomb disposal officer; papers from school and alumni activities; and personal papers.

The Addition of June 2017 consists of primary and secondary school materials, including publications from schools in Rowland, Robeson County, N.C.; college materials, including letters home from Chapel Hill to parents and friends; political campaign materials; printed materials, including legal filings of McNeill Smith with the U.S. Supreme Court; and personal and Smith family financial materials.

Custodial history:

Received from McNeill Smith of Greensboro, N.C., in September 1999 (Acc. 98444) and January 2000 (Acc. 98557); and from Anne Cole in June 2017 (Acc. 103090).

Processing information:

Processed by: James M. Roth, June 2001

Encoded by: James M. Roth, June 2001

Revisions by: Nancy Kaiser, Gillian McCuistion, and Biff Hollingsworth, November 2019

Finding aid updated for digitization by Kathryn Michaelis, July 2010

In 2017, we began using "white" as an ethnic and racial identity for individual and families, in addition to "Black," "African American," "Jewish," and other familiar identity terms that we have used for decades in collection descriptions. We use this identity term so that whiteness is no longer the presumed default of the people represented in our collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

Sensitive materials statement:

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Access and use

Restrictions to access:

Use of sound recordings or videotapes will require production of listening or viewing copies.

Restrictions to use:

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

No usage restrictions.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], in the McNeill Smith Papers #04990, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Location of this collection:
Louis Round Wilson Library
200 South Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27515
Contact:
(919) 962-3765
wilsonlibrary@unc.edu