Funeral services for Sylvester LeClaire Smith, the first black student to register at Saint Louis University and dedicated educator, are at 1:30 p.m. today (Sept. 1) at the St. Francis Xavier College Church at Lindell and Grand.
Smith, of Kinloch and most recently Florissant, died at the age of 90 on August 23, 2005.
Smith’s journey to Lincoln University and then SLU began in the Deep South.
His father could read and write and had “quite a following,” Smith wrote in one of his published memoirs.
Unfortunately, an intelligent black man in rural Mississippi in the early 1900s could easily lead to danger.
“The white sheets and the coneheads went after my dad,” Smith wrote. “My dad said, ‘We better move out.'” Then the Smith family settled in Kinloch.
Smith said his father taught him to be industrious and that “you can make bricks out of straw if you have a mind to do it.”
He would go on to use his mind in many brilliant ways and was the first African-American to register and be admitted at Saint Louis University.
“It was D-Day for the Allies and D-Day for me,” he wrote.
Smith stepped into his first class at SLU on D-Day: June 6, 1944. Then the 30-year-old superintendent of schools in Kinloch, he was the first black to enroll and the first admitted after the Rev. Patrick J. Holloran, president of SLU, decided in April 1944 to allow blacks to enroll. In total, five black students began attending classes there in the summer session of 1944.
As a child, Smith attended Dunbar School in Kinloch. The community had no high school, so he then attended Vashon High School.
After graduating, he headed to Lincoln University with “$200 in my pocket.”
After earning his undergraduate degree, he returned to Dunbar as a teacher and assistant principal. He became principal in 1938 and was promoted to superintendent of the district in 1943.
Smith was the first black superintendent in Missouri history. He remained in the position until he retired in 1964.
Smith enrolled at SLU as a graduate student and received a master’s degree in educational administration.
During his lengthy career, Smith earned many accolades and honors, including induction into the Vashon High School Hall of Fame. He will be posthumously inducted into the Gateway Classic Walk of Fame.
He also served on a number of boards and committees, including the Missouri State Curriculum Advisory Board.
He wrote that “I worked for 60 years, and I was only absent half a day.”
In 1960, a Kinloch elementary school was named in his honor. After retiring four years later, he was still not finished with making history.
Smith became the first vocational adjustment coordinator in St. Louis. Some students attended high school just two days a week. It was called “Terminal Education,” and it was Smith’s job to find jobs for T.E. students when they were in their second year.
“I would take kids out to these big private clubs and to state institutions, like out on Arsenal, and I found them jobs,” he wrote.
Smith is survived by one brother, Tony Smith of Chicago; a sister, Fannie B. Wells of Dellwood, Mo.; daughter Barbara J. Rochester of St. Louis; daughter Beverly Gipson-Davis of Florissant; and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Visitation was held Wednesday, Aug. 31, at Archway Memorial Chapel in Hazelwood. Visitation at the College Church will be from 1-1:30 p.m. today before the service.
