Remembering Al Smith

It was about a month before I visited the Open Door Community in Atlanta to write a feature story for Sojourners when the pictures started trickling in--Ed Loring leading a community meeting; Ed Loring at an Atlanta Advocates for the Homeless rally; Ed Loring posing with a donkey at the zoo. One of the founders of the Open Door (and one of the people who in endlessly creative ways reminds me to keep laughing), Ed wanted to be sure we had plenty of photographs from which to choose for the cover of the issue that carried the Open Door story. (Unfortunately, in the end, he lost out to a picture signifying "The Rise of Christian Conscience"; although Ed has a Christian conscience, we didn't know how to capture it on film.)

Ed's playful campaign to make the cover continued during my visit. I finally suggested that perhaps he should nominate himself for one of our December "incarnation" issues, an issue that guarantees cover prominence for the subject. He took the advice to heart and at that very moment decided to start acting more like Christ in order to heighten his chances.

On my last morning at the Open Door, I was eating breakfast with Ed and his family when someone knocked on their door. Al Smith, one of the community's residents whose job it was to answer the phone, walked in and handed me a pink message slip. "Jim Wallis just called from Washington," Al told me. "He said to bring this urgent message to you right away: 'Don't forget to get pictures of Ed for the cover of the magazine.'"

I had met Al only briefly before, and I was a bit thrown by the seriousness of his expression and the intent look in his eyes. I looked from him to Ed and back to Al again. I think it was Al who finally smiled first, and then guffawed as loud as he could at the joke he had carried off with perfect aplomb. Soon we were all laughing, and Al, with a broad smile and a sparkle in his eyes, excused himself with a "See you later."

AL SMITH, KNOWN AS "Gypsy" on the streets, lived off and on for a number of years at the Open Door, where his sense of humor and participation in practical jokes such as the one that caught me earned him a reputation as someone who enjoyed life despite its hardships. Murphy Davis of the Open Door said of Al's outlook, "It was as if being human was a good chuckle, and he loved to share that chuckle with other people."

Al was one of the best known of Atlanta's homeless people. He had a spirit that reached out to others and an unquenchable thirst for justice. He helped organize people to demand facilities for the homeless and change in the exploitative day-labor pool system. He knew that homelessness was an insult to the human family.

Al also supported the Open Door in its work with death row prisoners. When Ivan Stanley, a poor, retarded black man, was executed in 1984, Al was outraged at the injustice. He offered his consolation to the family and then went to the Open Door clothes closet, where he selected the finest pin-striped suit, pressed it, and dressed Ivan's body in it.

At another funeral--this time for his friend Jesse Owens, also known as "Goatman"--Al offered a moving testimony about Jesse's life, which had ended when he was beaten to death while sleeping inside a car on a used-car lot. Standing at the front of the church sanctuary, leaning against a window sill, Al said, "Now people call me Gypsy. But I want to tell you, Jesse Owens was the real gypsy, the authentic gypsy." It was a designation of honor to bestow his street name on a friend.

Al also said at the funeral, "I think we've got to stay together and we got to figure out why did this happen? Why was Goatman murdered? We gotta know why so we can make sure that it never happens again."

But it did happen again. In the early morning hours of October 17, 1986, Al Smith was beaten to death inside Samaritan House, a day shelter he had helped to run. No one knows why.

At his funeral a friend shared, "Gypsy would fall down and get up, fall down and get up, fall down and get up." He had overcome great odds. He had made it. But now he was gone. It was a terrible loss.

Had Al Smith lived, he would have been grieved and outraged to learn that the city of Atlanta is shutting down Plaza Park, a home for many homeless people, to make way for downtown redevelopment. The homeless community and its advocates in Atlanta are demanding that a new park be built--the Al Smith Park. Al had given a designation of honor to a friend, and now his many friends are returning the favor.

Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.