Smith: ‘I teared up’
For longtime Gary legislator, being booed on Indiana House floor ‘opened up the wounds’ from a lifetime of racism
When he was about 12 years old, Vernon Smith said a doctor referred him to a specialist about his chronic headaches. His family did not have a car, so his mother gave him directions on which buses to take.
Smith said he made it to the office in Gary, but when he left he became confused because the street split in that area. As he was walking to find the bus stop, Smith said he passed through “the white project area there.”
People started to throw stones at him.
“That was probably the first time that I can recall overt racism,” Smith said.
Over the course of his life, Smith said he’s experienced racial discrimination from restaurants not serving Black customers; having to avoid certain areas of Gary as a kid; Black students only allowed to swim in Froebel High School pool on Fridays after which the water was drained and more.
Most recently, Smith, a House member representing
Gary residents in Indianapolis, was booed while trying to share his experience of racial discrimination on the House floor.
“When you’re young, you are not really aware of everything that’s going on. You don’t read behind the lines and you don’t know the rest of the story. You’re just living. You’re just following in what you’re told to do,” Smith said.
Growing up, Smith, 76, said he was the youngest of 10 children and had a mostly happy childhood. His mother, Julia E. Smith, who became a minister, was part of the small group of Black honor students who walked through the doors of Emerson High School on Sept. 19, 1927, during a push to expand integration at the school.
His family lived in Midtown, between 12th and 26th avenues, between the railroad tracks at 9th Avenue and the highway at 26th Avenue, where the Black families in Gary lived in the 1950s, Smith said.
The family owned a building, with five apartments, two grocery stores and a mechanic’s garage, so Smith said his friends and neighbors viewed the family as well off. But, Smith said there were nights they would go to sleep cold because the heat wouldn’t work and only eating certain foods based on budget.
“I was in poverty and didn’t know I was living in poverty. When you’re in your neighborhood, and your neighborhood is limited, you don’t see what the rest of the world is like,” Smith said.
As a student at Froebel, which had a largely Black and Hispanic student population, Smith said he was taught by white teachers. While the teachers cared for and motivated all their students, he was not taught about Black history in school other than about George Washington Carver, a scientist, and Benjamin Banneker, an author.
“I really had a hole in my Black history knowledge base,” Smith said.
As a student at Indiana University in Bloomington — where he earned a bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in education — Smith recalled sitting through a 45-minute lecture about “why Negroes were inferior to whites,” during his junior year.
In the same class, Smith said he got an A- on the midterm. After receiving his grade, Smith said the professor asked to walk out with him after class, which took him by surprise.
Smith said as they walked through campus the professor asked Smith his thoughts on the midterm. The conversation quickly turned to the professor asking Smith about specific questions and his answers.
“It was maybe a month later when I’m reflecting on it that I realize that what he was doing was grilling me on the test to see if I had cheated because his premise was that African Americans — back then Negroes — were inferior to whites. He wanted to know how I got an A- on his test,” Smith said.
There was another college professor, Smith said, that openly stated the best grade Black students would receive in his class was a D. In the moment, Smith said he didn’t think that would apply to him because he was an honor student and would earn a higher grade.
Out of 13 Black students in that class, only two — including Smith — stayed in the class. Smith said he and the other Black student agreed to stay in the class at least through the midterm to see how they would do.
Smith said he got a “B” on the midterm, the other Black student got an “A.” They decided to stick it out.
But, Smith said he ultimately got a “D” in the class because the professor gave him an “F” and “D” as his grades for the final exam and term paper. The professor wouldn’t let Smith review his paper or test claiming he threw both away.
“To this day I don’t feel like I earned a D. He gave me a D,” Smith said. “I’m a professor at the university now, I keep all my term papers and everything for a whole year in case students want to question me.”
In 1972, Smith said he took 50 of his students to Disney World in Florida. There was only one restaurant, a national chain, near the hotel, so the group went there for dinner one night. The restaurant workers ignored the group for an hour and a half until Smith asked what the holdup was.
The group of Black students was denied service, Smith said, and they ate vending machine snacks for dinner.
As a state representative since 1990, Smith said he recalls driving to a speaking engagement. He said he was speeding a little bit because he was running late.
He was pulled over in Sullivan County, south of Terre Haute, and police officers immediately got out of the car and pointed guns at him, Smith said. After reviewing police reports about the traffic stop, Smith said he learned the officers pulled him over because they thought he stole the vehicle.
On Feb. 18, Smith was one of two Black legislators who were booed by Republican colleagues while trying to address racial inequality in an education bill. The point they were making is that the bill, which ultimately passed, has underlying racial inequality implications by allowing students to leave a diverse school district for a rural school district.
As Smith was getting booed, he said he was most upset about fellow representatives trying to stop him from speaking. The behavior of those who booed him “is a spillover of Trumpism,” he said.
“What happened (Feb. 18) opened up the wounds. I teared up several times just thinking about it. Even last night I woke up thinking about it,” Smith said the day after the incident. “I was in pain the entire day.”
After Smith and Rep. Greg Porter, D-Indianapolis, were booed, Smith and Rep. Vanessa Summers, DIndianapolis, were confronted by Republican colleagues in the hallway after the discussion.
In the days following, the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus called for mandatory racial equity and implicit bias training for legislators, reprimands for those involved in altercations, and safety precautions in place for all members.
“Today we gather to truly say enough is enough,” said IBLC chairwoman Robin Shackleford, D-Indianapolis. “We believe that to be silent in times like these is to do a disservices to those before us and after us.”
House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, pledged to be stricter in enforcing House decorum and speaking rules and asked the members to treat each other with respect and civility.
“Each of our districts are different and unique, and likewise each of us bring our own unique experiences and life experiences to this chamber. Let’s all remember to listen and recommit to learning from one another to better serve all of our constituents,” Huston said.
America is a great country, Smith said, “no country supersedes ours.”
“But we’ve got to understand that even though it’s a great country, it still has a history and a practice — a present day practice — of exhibiting racism,” Smith said. “We must be a civil nation and be civil toward people.”