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"Pinellas Chapter Honors Longtime ACLU Crusader for Racial Justice, Children's Rights"
December 2002 Edition of the ACLU of Florida Newsletter
By Thom Foley and Elaina Ozrovitz
Special for The Torch
Myrtle Smith-Carroll, longtime ACLU member and donor, is the 2002 recipient of the Gardner W. Beckett, Jr. Civil Liberties Award, which will be presented by the ACLU of Florida's Pinellas Chapter at their annual Bill of Rights Dinner on December 5.
Since 1992, this award has been given by the Pinellas Chapter to individuals who have demonstrated an outstanding commitment to basic civil liberties, principles, and values inherent in the Bill of Rights. In the footsteps of the late Gardner Beckett, who argued successfully before the US Supreme Court, these recipients exemplify an unflinching commitment to the defense of our constitution and its guarantees of equal protection, due process, and simple justice.
Myrtle was chosen as this year's recipient for many reasons, not least of which is in recognition of her many years of activism for children's rights, women's rights, and racial justice. These issues have been important to Myrtle since she was a child, she says, having been raised in an extended matriarchal family of devout Irish Catholics in the heart of Harlem. The socially conscious and active priests of her parish led meetings of The John Birch Society in the basement of their parish hall during the 1960s. Myrtle participated in many rigorous debates.
At the same time, Myrtle was raising seven children, a single mother for many of their young years. Looking for alternative and inexpensive ways to entertain her children, she took them to the Peter Maurin Farm on Staten Island (named for Dorothy Day's co-founder of The Catholic Worker), where they were exposed to many people with diverse backgrounds as they played. As they grew up, their mother says, they and she continued to appreciate diversity and the value of advocacy and activism.
When Myrtle and her four youngest children moved to Florida in 1972, she took a position as editor of the Religion Section of the St. Petersburg Times, and in the following decade worked as a reporter and photographer for The Florida Catholic, a columnist and photographer for the Pinellas Democrat, and a reporter and talk show host for WTSP-TV. In 1980, she received the Susan B. Anthony Award from the Pinellas chapter of NOW. In 1983, Myrtle began a five-year stint as Media Specialist for the St. Petersburg Fire Department, and served as a consultant with Pinellas County Emergency Medical Services.
"I found myself floating with people from the ACLU and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom," Myrtle said. She has been a member of the ACLU since 1990. This began a decade of devoting many hours to volunteer work with the Florida Democratic Party, the Juvenile Welfare Board ? a position to which she was appointed by Florida's Governor ? and the ACLU of Florida in Pinellas County.
Myrtle says she believes the ACLU of Florida's largest battles for the coming year are its campaign to end the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of ex-felons in this state; and to fight for the rights of Florida's children. "We're going to have to get involved in the future of children in Florida," she says. "The Department of Children and Families is in the pits. Children have civil rights, and nobody is attacking the problem from that angle."
The ACLU of Florida is honored to have Myrtle Smith-Carroll as one of our members and activists. We believe she embodies the spirit of vigilance to which the Gardner W. Beckett, Jr. Civil Liberties Award is dedicated. We hope you can join us in publicly thanking her at the Pinellas Chapter's Bill of Rights Dinner on December 5th.
