Spring 2022
Department of English
Distinguished Lecture Webinar
Dr. Clint Smith
“The Educational System and the Teaching of Slavery”
April 4, 2022
1:00 PM Central Time
Dr. Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of the narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller and was longlisted for the National Book Award. He is also the author
of the poetry collection Counting Descent, which won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of
the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award.
Smith has received fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New America,
the Emerson Collective, the Art For Justice Fund, Cave Canem, and the National Science
Foundation. His essays, poems, and scholarly writing have been published in The New
Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, Poetry Magazine, The Paris
Review, the Harvard Educational Review, and elsewhere. He is a 2014 National Poetry
Slam champion and a 2017 recipient of the Jerome J. Shestack Prize from the American
Poetry Review.
Previously, Smith taught high school English in Prince George’s County, Maryland where,
in 2013, he was named the Christine D. Sarbanes Teacher of the Year by the Maryland
Humanities Council. He currently teaches writing and literature in the D.C. Central
Detention Facility. He is also the host of the YouTube series Crash Course Black American History.
Smith received his B.A. in English from Davidson College and his Ph.D. in Education from Harvard University. Born and raised in New Orleans, he currently lives in Maryland with his wife and their two children.<
Smith received his B.A. in English from Davidson College and his Ph.D. in Education from Harvard University. Born and raised in New Orleans, he currently lives in Maryland with his wife and their two children.<