Guest Interview with Dr. William H. "Smitty" Smith

William H. Smith is the founding executive director of the National Center for Race Amity(http://www.wheelock.edu/ncra/about.html) based at Wheelock College in Boston, Ma. His prior higher education assignment was as executive director of the Center for Diversity in the Communication Industries at Emerson College in Boston, Ma.

Smith's was profiled in the Sports Illustrated cover story (November 7, 2005) as one of the pioneers who changed the face of college football. He left Wake Forest to work as a community organizer in the Civil Rights Movement and was drafted into the US Army. He graduated with honors from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst after serving as a medic in Vietnam, where he was awarded two Bronze Star stars and the Combat Medic Badge.

 In 2000 he organized the historic Joint Congressional Resolution establishing a National Day of Honor to recognize the service of African American and other minority soldiers in World War II. In conjunction with that event, he wrote and produced an award winning documentary film, "The Invisible Soldiers: Unheard Voices," which aired on PBS. Smith coordinated the national initiatives "Neighborhood Conversations on Race: A Talk Worth Having" and "Campus Conversations on Race"(CCOR) and the handbooks which support those programs. He founded the Campus Conversations on Race College Network whose sixteen member colleges is slated to grow to two hundred and fifty under the focused support of the National Center for Race Amity.

Smith has received awards from numerous organizations including the International Academy of Communications Arts and Sciences, the National Association for Black Veterans, Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, Screen Actors Guild Diversity in Production Award, National Association of Government Communicators, and the National Education Association.