On Thursday, April 1, producer and director Hal Jacobs will present a free screening of the film, “Lillian Smith: Breaking the Silence,” which documents the largely forgotten story of prominent southern writer and activist Lillian Smith, outdoors on the Residential Plaza on Georgia Southern University’s Armstrong Campus in Savannah. The screening will begin at 7:30 p.m., followed by a Q&A session with Jacobs.

“Lillian Smith was a southern writer who was a force to be reckoned with from the 1940s through the early 1960s,” said Jacobs. “She was the first prominent southern author to speak out against segregation.”

Smith’s first novel, Strange Fruit, was a national bestseller that offered a bold look at social and sexual relations in a small southern town that strongly resembled her hometown of Jasper, Florida, where she was born in 1897. She lived her adult life in north Georgia with her lifelong partner Paula Snelling, and she continued to write and stay politically active until her death in 1966. 

“Breaking the Silence” explores Smith’s novels and her active stance on racial and gender equality before and during the civil rights movement. 

“She was a trusted friend and correspondent of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who in his impassioned Letter from Birmingham Jail, included her as ‘one of a small group of those who have written about our struggle in eloquent and prophetic terms,’” said Jacobs. “In fact, in 1960, when King was pulled over in DeKalb County for an alleged traffic violation, Smith was riding in his car. King was driving her to Emory Hospital for the treatment of cancer that plagued her for over 10 years and would eventually take her life.”

Jacobs and his photographer and musician son, Henry, directed and produced the documentary together, “in hopes that Smith’s life and words will inspire more dialogue, more fearlessness and more people breaking the silence well into the future.”

The film screening, hosted by the College of Education’s (COE) Department of Curriculum, Foundations and Reading, is free and open to the public. The screening is a supported event of the COE’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee and the Campus Life Enrichment Committee. 

Attendees of the film screening will be required to wear masks and social distance. Attendees are encouraged to bring chairs or blankets to sit on as well as snacks for the movie.

For more information, about the film, visit https://lilliansmithdoc.com/