In memoriam: Longtime FFRF Member Clark-Smith dies at 90

FFRF is saddened to report the death of Brigit Clark-Smith, 90, a member of FFRF for decades. 

Brigit took her own life on Sept. 2, 2021, informing friends and family well in advance of her plans. “I am leaving Earth in a dignified way,” she wrote FFRF last summer. “I am ready. Living in this way, in pain and breaking down, is not for me.

“I have been an FFRF member for years. I have been an atheist since second grade. My parents were Christian and I had to go to Sunday school and church every Sunday (Presbyterian). Thank you, FFRF, for being here,”
she wrote.

In her 80s, Brigit had formed an Atheists Anonymous organization in her La Costa Glen retirement community in Carlsbad, Calif. She named the group after a woman in her retirement center told her, “Oh, we’re atheists, but we want to remain anonymous.” 

“They couldn’t be free in the United States of America to say they are atheist, and I thought that’s just terrible,” Brigit told KPBS-TV, a local station in San Diego, which did a segment about Brigit and her atheist activism on Dec. 5, 2012. You can watch the segment at: bit.ly/3aRThDH.

Brigit’s group started out in 2010 with 16 members and some meetings had attracted more than 90 people. However, reactions included being called “Anti-Christ, “a Jew lover” and being told she’s “a sinner,” who will go to hell and will “burn forever.”

A virtual memorial was held via Zoom on Nov. 7, 2020.