Archer Dickerson Smith, III, 74, of Atlanta and Clarkesville, Georgia, died early Friday, September 25, 2015. His death occurred as the result of a single vehicle accident while on route from Atlanta to Clarkesville.
His funeral is scheduled for 2:00 pm Monday, September 28 at Christ Episcopal Church, 1210 Wooten Lake Rd, Kennesaw, GA. The Rev. P Richard Game will celebrate and The Rev. Bruce Laird will assist. The family will receive friends Sunday, September 27, 2015 from 4 to 6 pm at the funeral home.
Mr. Smith is survived by this wife, the Rev. Doris Graf Smith; his daughter and son Margaret Kemper Smith Lindler and Adam Kell Lindler; his son and daughter, Dr. Archer Dickerson Smith, IV and Betsy Fisk Smith; his three grandsons Noah, Luke and Archer D. Smith, V; his sister and brother Meta Smith Armstrong and David Armstrong; his niece, Sally B. Armstrong; his brother George Graf and Arren Maye Graf; his nephew Chris Graf and newest niece, Elizabeth Fisk Graf, along with cousins and second cousins.
Mr. Smith is the son of the late Archer D. Smith, Jr. and Meta Boykin Barnwell Smith. He did his undergraduate work at Emory University where he was active in debate, Delta Tau Delta, and other campus organizations; he gained his law degree from the University of Georgia in Athens where he was active in the student government of the law school, the Demostenian Society, and continued to help support himself by selling shoes at local stores both in Atlanta and Athens. He formed friendships during those years which have lasted to this day.
Mr. Smith joined the bar in 1966 and was looking forward to completing fifty years of practice in June of 2016. He rose to a partner in the law firm he began with out of law school and remained employed with the firm for four decades: Harmon, Smith, Bridges and Wilbanks. His last years were spent in the practice of Archer Smith and Associates.
Mr. Smith found great joy in the law and became well respected in his field of family law. He also enjoyed being involved in politics and thought it a duty to support good people for public office. He discovered other passions through his faith, his legal background, and his basic sense of fairness; those passions included developing housing for low and moderate income people in the Atlanta area, helping promote programming to enable prisoners to find work after release, and supporting the work of the Martin Luther King Center for Social Change as the attorney for the Center and for Mrs. Coretta Scott King for many years. Mr. Smith recently received an award for some of his work with the Civil Rights Movement.
In lieu of flowers the family has requested donations to be made to Emmaus House Atlanta 1017 Hank Aaron Drive SW, Atlanta, GA 30315.www.emmaushouseatlanta.org.
