Robert Lloyd Smith Part 1
Courtesy of Baylor University Library
Food Rebel Robert Lloyd Smith (1861-1942), was the founder of the Farmers Improvement Society. He had been one of the leading African American educators and public figures in Texas during the late 1800s to the mid-1900s. For more than fifty years, Smith worked to help sharecropping African Americans in Texas improve their status. Born in 1861 to free parents, Smith was a native of Charleston, South Carolina. From early in life, he received an abundance of schooling opportunities, first at Avery Normal Institute, then at the University of South Carolina in mathematics and English, and finally at Atlanta University in Georgia as a teacher. After teaching in public schools from 1880 to 1885 in Georgia and South Carolina, Smith migrated to Oakland, Texas, with his first wife Francis Isabella where he served as school principal. He went on to turn the school into one of the best teacher training schools in the state. Inspired by New England self-improvement societies, Smith founded one in 1889 for African Americans in Oakland, which he named the Village Improvement Society (VIS). The society focused on assisting black people improve their section of town.
