Frank Ellis Smith (February 21, 1918 – August 2, 1997) was a

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...

from

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

. Born in

Sidon, Mississippi Sidon is a town in Leflore County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 509 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Greenwood, Mississippi micropolitan area. Geography Sidon is located at (33.408096, -90.208813). According to the United ...

, Smith attended the public schools of Sidon and Greenwood, Mississippi. He graduated from Sunflower Junior College, Moorhead, Mississippi, in 1936, and from the

University of Mississippi The University of Mississippi ( byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment ...

in 1941, where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi. He entered the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

as a private on February 9, 1942. He was a graduate of Field Artillery Officers Candidate School and served in Europe as a captain with the Two Hundred and Forty-third Field Artillery Battalion, Third Army. He was discharged to the Reserves as a major of Field Artillery on February 13, 1946. He was managing editor of the ''Greenwood Morning Call'' in 1946 and 1947, and a student at American University,

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, in 1946. He was a legislative assistant to

United States Senator The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and powe ...

John Stennis John Cornelius Stennis (August 3, 1901April 23, 1995) was an American politician who served as a U.S. Senator from the state of Mississippi. He was a Democrat who served in the Senate for over 41 years, becoming its most senior member for hi ...

from 1947 to 1949, and served as a member of the state senate from 1948 to 1950. Smith was elected as a

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...

to the Eighty-second and to the five succeeding Congresses, and served from January 3, 1951, until his resignation November 14, 1962. He was unsuccessful for renomination in 1962 to the Eighty-eighth Congress. Smith worked passionately for racial reconciliation. In his book "Congressman From Mississippi" (1964) he detailed his non-race-based politics. Despite this, he was a signatory to the 1956 Southern Manifesto that opposed the desegregation of public schools ordered by the Supreme Court in ''

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...

''. Smith served as member of the Board of Directors of the

Tennessee Valley Authority The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...

from November 14, 1962, to May 18, 1972. He ran third in a 1972 congressional primary in seeking reelection to the U.S. House and missed the runoff. He served as associate director of the Illinois State Board of Higher Education from 1973 to 1974; was a visiting professor at

Virginia Polytechnic Institute Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also has educational facilities in six re ...

from 1977 to 1979; and special assistant to Governor William Winter of Mississippi from 1980 to 1983. Smith was elected life fellow of the

Southern Regional Council The Southern Regional Council (SRC) is a reform-oriented organization created in 1944 to avoid racial violence and promote racial equality in the Southern United States. Voter registration and political-awareness campaigns are used toward this en ...

in 1984. He died in

Jackson, Mississippi Jackson, officially the City of Jackson, is the capital of and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city is also one of two county seats of Hinds County, along with Raymond. The city had a population of 153,701 at t ...

, on August 2, 1997.

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