Trailblazing SC lawyer who fought for civil rights and became 1st Amendment icon dies
A Columbia lawyer who defended the rights of poor women who were unjustly sterilized and simultaneously helped shape rules for lawyers’ free speech has died.
Edna Smith Primus, one of the first black women to practice law in South Carolina, made her mark as a lawyer working with the American Civil Liberties Union in the 1970s. She died Friday, Nov. 29, at the age of 75.
Primus’ name was engraved in history in 1978, when a punishment against her rose to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Primus had taken interest in victims of involuntary sterilization. It was common practice at the time in South Carolina and other parts of the country to sterilize impoverished women as a condition of their receiving welfare benefits, making them unable to bear future children.
Sterilizations in the South most often were performed on black women, and the practice was considered by many African Americans as a form of genocide.
This practice became a subject of national attention in the early 1970s.
The New York Times reported on the experience of one of those women in Aiken. Marietta Williams, at age 20, was coerced into having her Fallopian tubes cut and tied after giving birth to her third child. The Times reported in August 1973:
“’I wouldn’t marry again. Who would want me, knowing I cannot have any children?’ (Williams) said the other day, repeating a sentiment expressed over and over again in this part of the country, where a woman’s greatest gift is still thought to be her fertility.”
Amid the outcry over these sterilizations, Primus met with a group of Aiken women to discuss their legal options and suggest possible legal action. Williams was among those women.
For suggesting to these women that the ACLU could sue on their behalf, Primus was publicly reprimanded by the S.C. Supreme Court. It was unethical to for a lawyer to solicit business, the court said.
“We were scarce then, black women lawyers,” Smith told The State newspaper almost a decade later, in a 1989 interview. “A public reprimand splashed all over the papers, that was totally demoralizing. ‘What do people think?’ I wondered. I was embarrassed. I felt so self-conscious. ...
“I wanted to be left alone, to be an unknown person. I never told anybody in my family what was happening. I had gone to law school on my own, and they were proud of it, and I thought how embarrassed they would be.”
However, in 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court would take the side of Primus and overturn the state court’s reprimand.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of Primus argued she was protected by the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and expression. The court declared a lawyer such as Primus may reach out to potential clients when doing so involves political expression and advocating for the rights of the public.
In the following years, modern rules regarding lawyers’ speech took shape, in part, as a result of Primus’ case.
Speaking to The State in 1989, Primus said she didn’t regret her involvement with the women who had been sterilized in Aiken.
“I really felt they were being victimized,” she told the newspaper. “I thought it was important for people with little resources to be informed of their rights.”
Primus went on to work for decades in civil rights and social justice law.
Primus will be laid to rest Saturday, Dec. 14, in Columbia. A funeral service is planned for 1 p.m. at Greater St. Luke Baptist Church. A viewing is scheduled for 2 p.m. Dec. 13 at Leevy’s Funeral Home on Taylor Street in Columbia.
This story was originally published December 6, 2019 at 5:00 AM.
