Biography
He was one of the Quincy Five, Black civil-rights and voter-registration activists prosecuted for the September 1970 robbery at Luke’s Grocery in Leon County and the killing of deputy Thomas Revels. The contemporaneous defense report described police harassment of their organizing and actual jail custody and mistreatment. Smith was acquitted of the Luke’s Grocery charges after the Jacksonville Three were convicted. He was separately imprisoned on robbery and power-plant-bombing convictions, so the acquittal does not prove a release from prison.
He was one of the Quincy Five, Black civil-rights and voter-registration activists prosecuted for the September 1970 robbery at Luke’s Grocery in Leon County and the killing of deputy Thomas Revels. The contemporaneous defense report described police harassment of their organizing and actual jail custody and mistreatment. Smith was acquitted of the Luke’s Grocery charges after the Jacksonville Three were convicted. He was separately imprisoned on robbery and power-plant-bombing convictions, so the acquittal does not prove a release from prison.
Original contemporary source 1 ; Original contemporary source 2 ; Original contemporary source 3.
