James E. Smith of New Cassel, North Hempstead Town parks supervisor, dies at 90

James E. Smith rarely spoke about his childhood of hunger and Ku Klux Klan atrocities, later moving from the South to New Cassel, where the creation of an American Legion post and a community center were just two of his accomplishments, his family and friends said.

“He was subject to a lot of things that are literally unspeakable,” said his son James Smith of Charlotte, North Carolina. “Instead of taking that and looking at it from a negative perspective, he decided to dedicate his life to helping other people.”

The Progressive Civic Association of New Cassel gave Smith its 1993 Making a Difference award, followed the next year by the Town of North Hempstead issuing a proclamation honoring him for advocating for the New Cassel United Community Center.

Smith, a retired North Hempstead Town parks supervisor, died on Oct. 24 and was buried Nov. 3 at Calverton National Cemetery. The New Cassel resident was 90.

Growing up on the family farm in Henderson, North Carolina, he saw lynchings, beatings and cross burnings, the son said he learned from his grandmother. When his father was about 12 years old, he was playing in a field on the farm when Klansmen in a car driving past saw him and got out to beat him up, the son said.

Smith toiled as a sharecropper until he enlisted in the Army in 1953, assigned to a Black infantry unit that was sent overseas to serve in the Korean War, his family said. As Smith would later recount, his son said, the Army often gave Black servicemen the most dangerous missions and diverted supplies for Black units to white ones.

Discharged in 1955, he headed for Westbury, where he worked seven years for a cousin who was a builder, before packaging Newsday newspapers for two years.

When he got hired by the North Hempstead Town parks department, it was the start of a 40-plus-year career that saw him rise from groundskeeper to supervisor. He was responsible for New Cassel Park, where big names such as Aretha Franklin and the Jackson 5 performed, before he was put in charge of Broadway Town Park in Garden City Park, those who knew him said.

In the mid-1960s, he and other Black veterans started New Cassel American Legion Memorial Post 1861, where he served as the commander for 20 years. It was like a club and a community center, a place where they could guide Black people in a discriminatory job market and also host parties for children.

By several accounts, everyone in the community knew Smith, a leading voice for the area. He coached Little League, got people to vote and opened the parks at night so young residents could keep off the streets. He pressed town leaders to bring more services to New Cassel and transported donations to his church food pantry.

“He wasn’t a man of many words,” said April Brown, who lived across from Smith. “He was a man of many things that enabled other people.”

Niece Kim Harris said she and her cousins had their own fathers but Smith was like a second father to them: “He came to all of our benchmark affairs, graduation, proms. I had 50 cousins so it was a lot. He was always there for all of us.”

Smith had emerged from the dim prospects of a Jim Crow era to marry his wife, Mildred, have three children who got at least master’s degrees, buy a house, and take his family on vacations in their souped-up Ford van — it had a refrigerator, couch, table and burnt-orange shag carpet.

But he never spoke of his journey as a success story, said his son Mike Smith of Westbury.

“My father was very humble,” the son said. “He talked more about being proud of his kids being a success.”

Besides his two sons, James E. Smith is survived by a sister, Mildred Vass of Henderson, North Carolina. Smith's wife predeceased him in 2012, and his daughter, Renee Smalls, in 1998.