Mr. Smith was a leader in the Atlanta student movement while an undergraduate at Morehouse College from 1959-1962. He later served as a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Mississippi from 1962-1968. After leaving Mississippi, Mr. Smith moved to Washington, D.C. in 1968. During the 1980s and 1990s, Mr. Smith served to elected positions on the D.C. Board of Education and the D.C. City Council. In 1998, he founded the African American Civil War Memorial and Museum Foundation. He currently serves as its Executive Director.

Here, Mr. Smith discusses his personal and family background, how he became involved in the Atlanta student movement, his work in Mississippi for SNCC, the lessons of the civil rights movement for contemporary politics and his impressions of and relationship with Mr. Bond, with whom he attended Morehouse and worked in the civil rights movement.