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Thelma E. Smoot 

Author, ​Department Head for FBI in DC

- discusses growing up in St. Mary's -

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Thelma E. Smoot was born and raised in St. Mary’s and is the author of three published books; Chronicles of Leroy June, The Bully Within: For LJ, and What’s In A Name.

 

Ms. Smooth speaks of her people’s migration from Manning, South Carolina, her holistic healing great-grandmother, her great-grandfather, who owned a pig called ‘Beloved”, her 6’4” skinny son and her daughter who could recite “Just Like Job’ at age 5. Her joy of story telling comes from sitting in her grandmother’s lap listening to the story of Genesis.

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Her experiences with racism surface throughout Ms. Smoot's interview.  She first felt racism on her first day at Mechanicsville Elementary School (she thinks of herself as the Ruby Bridges of St. Mary’s County) and believes that unjustness still thrives today. She mentions a dinner forum held in Leonardtown, the 'Round Table,' to discuss race relations in St. Mary's.

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Thelma E. Smoot was interviewed on July 1, 2026 by Catherine "Brenda" Coates for the Unified Committee for Afro-American Contributions Oral History Documentation Project.  Also in attendance were UCAC volunteers Nathaniel Lawrence, Elisia Lewis, Anna Mosely, Alma Jordon, and Emily Lewis. Accompanying Ms. Smoot was her mother Thelma Flordell Holt, and her daughter Tamica Johnson. A verbatim transcript of this interview is available.

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​Thelma Smoot has written and published three books available on Amazon.com:

AUTHOR'S NOTE: What's In A Name is deeply rooted in a rural farming community in Southern Maryland. In the 1960s a young African American girl, Elizabeth, struggles with the effects that class and race discrimination is having on her family and a neighboring white boy, Jacob. Although sharecroppers, her grandparents, play an integral role in the town finding ways to work around a cruel and unfair system.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Although the book is fictional, it includes some facets of my childhood, growing up in a small tobacco farming community in Southern Maryland. In 1965, I began school during the onset of desegregation of a predominately white school. This experience was memorable, and filled with challenges, which prepared me for the person I am today.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: My grandfather, Leroy June, was a simple man who loved God first, then his family and community. He suffered much adversity and pain in his lifetime. But never once did he surrender to it.

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