Daryl Schmidt Papers

Dr. Daryl Schmidt was born in 1944 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and was the first of three children to Arnold and Jennie Schmidt. He received a bachelor’s degree from Bethel College, a master of divinity from the Mennonite Biblical Seminary, and a PhD from the Graduate Theological Union. He devoted his entire career at TCU where he taught classes in New Testament Studies and Greek. He also won various professional awards such as the "Who's Who in Religion" in 1994. Schmidt also served as the Chair of the Religion Department from 1999-2005. Dr. Schmidt took a personal and professional stance on the apartheid in South Africa and held meetings, created petitions, and mailed various leaders in order to help create change. Apartheid was a political and social system in South Africa during the era of white minority rule. Under this system people were divided by race and forced to live separately from one another. This movement was started by Prime Minster Hendrik Verwoerd in 1958 and was key to in shaping the implementation of this system in South Africa. This movement not only supported white supremacy but aimed to weaken the non-white majority by dividing South Africans along tribal lines to decrease their political power. In the 1960s, Anti-Apartheid movements called for boycotts and other protests against South African government, including divestment. The divestiture movement on college campuses started in the 1960's but became a larger movement in the 1980's. Students organized a demand that their colleges and universities divest from South Africa, meaning that they should cease investing endowment funds in companies that traded or had operations in South Africa. At many universities, many students and faculty protested in order to force action on the issue. At TCU, Dr. Schmidt was a campus leader on the divestment issue. Dr. Schmidt passed away in 2006 at the age of 61.