LDF Official's Son Named by President

Press Release
June 8, 1968

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  • Press Releases, Volume 5. LDF Official's Son Named by President, 1968. c65660ba-b892-ee11-be37-6045bddb811f. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/05360d51-0746-4eea-9c02-32cbfb702239/ldf-officials-son-named-by-president. Accessed April 22, 2025.

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79 

nr toa. Wranele Bi Rivers | 
/\ PRESS RELEASE Director-Counsel | 

egal efense und Jack Greenberg 
Director, Public Relations NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Jesse DeVore, Jr. 

10 Columbus Circle. New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 68397 4) pa aa NIGHT NUMBER 712-749-8487 

SATURDAY 
June 8, 1968 

LDF OFFICIAL'S SON 
NAMED BY PRESIDENT 

NEW YORK---Mark Douglas Smith, 16-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Rufus 
W. Smith, 216 Kane Street, Brooklyn, has been named a Presidential 
Scholar of 1968. 

His father is Director of Development for the NAACP Legal 
Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.; his mother is reading consultant 
for District 13 of the New York City Board of Education. 

Young Smith, along with a select group of high school seniors 
throughout the country, will be the guests of President and Mrs. 
Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House on June 10. 

Presidential scholars are chosen on the basis of academic 
achievements and extra-curricular activities. 

Mr. Smith will be graduated on June 8 from the Millbrook School, 
Millbrook, New York, a college preparatory school in Dutchess County. 
He will deliver the student commencement address. 

He will be one of the first two Negro students ever to graduate 
from the school. 

A former student at Brooklyn Friends School where his sister, 
Marcia, 9, is presently enrolled, young Smith entered the Millbrook 
School in the fall of 1964. 

He has been an honor student for four years and was recently 
inducted into the Cum Laude Society, national honor society for high 
school students. 

Outstanding in extra-curricular activities, he is president of 
the student body; assistant editor of the "Silo," campus newspaper; 
member of the debating team; and a member of the editorial boards 
of the "Mill" and "Tamarack," literary magazine and yearbook, 
respectively. 

In sports he is a member of the Millbrook varsity teams in 
soccer, squash, racquets, and tennis. 

Mr. Smith was named National Achievement Scholar by the National 
Merit Corporation in March and was also a National Merit finalist. 

He will enter Harvard College in September. 

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