radio commentator; television commentator; writer
Personal Information
Born Tavis Smiley, September 13, 1964, in Gulfport, Mississippi; son of Emory G. Smiley (an Air Force noncommissioned officer) and Joyce M. Smiley (an associate Pentecostal minister).
Education: Indiana University, bachelor's degree, 1986.
Memberships: Los Angeles' Young Black Professionals, chairman, operations committee, 1988-90; Inner City Foundation for Excellence in Education, advisory bd., 1989-91; Challengers Boys and Girls Club, board of dirs., 1989--; LA Black College Tour, board of dirs., 1991--; Kappa Alpha Psi; Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Non- Violent Social Change, advisory board, 1992-93; United Way of Greater Los Angeles, steering committee, 1989-90.
Career
Radio/television commentator, author, 1990-; asst. to Bloomington, IN, mayor Tomilea Allison, 1984-85; aide to Los Angeles City Council president Pat Russell, 1987; special asst. to the exec. dir. SCLC, Los Angeles, 1988; admin. aide to Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, 1988-90; "The Smiley Report," radio/television commentator, 1990--; tv commentator/host, "BET Tonight," Black Entertainment Television, 1996--.
Life's Work
In a preview to its 1994 list of 50 future American leaders, Time magazine observed, "As surely as there are forces organic to today's America that stifle leadership, there are forces within some Americans that cause them to lead nonetheless. Ambition plays a role, as does a desire to do good, but doggedness is essential, as is a sort of questioning curiosity." Named to that list of emerging leaders, Tavis Smiley is an excellent fit for this leadership profile. Observers perceive him as impatient to get to the top. "Yes, I'm impatient," Smiley acknowledged to the Los Angeles Times in 1994, "but I don't think I have to be patient. I have to be good. I don't see why you have to wait till you're 50 years old to be a success."
Smiley has been running on a political fast track since he was in college, when he interned in the administration of the late Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley. After graduation from Indiana University, he worked for three years as an administrative aide in the Bradley organization, hosted radio talk shows, served as a guest commentator on several network television shows, and created his own 60-second syndicated radio commentary, "The Smiley Report." He has written three books since 1993, most notably the liberal manifesto Hard Right: Straight Talk about the Wrongs of the Right. Published in June 1996, the book was into a third printing only a month later.
The third of ten children, Smiley was born September 13, 1964 in Gulfport, Mississippi, the son of Joyce M. and Emory G. Smiley. When he was two his father, an Air Force noncommissioned officer, was transferred to Grissom Air Force Base in Bunker Hill, Indiana. Upon arriving in Indiana, the Smiley family took up residence in a crowded mobile home in Kokomo. Although the family was poor, Smiley observed in the introduction to Hard Left that "while we never had a lot of what we wanted, I can't say we ever went hungry, either." His father often worked several part-time jobs to support his large family, and Smiley wrote of him, "I've never known anyone with a stronger work ethic." Smiley's mother was an associate minister at their church, the New Bethel Tabernacle, part of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. Smiley recalled for the Washington Post that he was in church every day when he was growing up.
Acutely aware that Indiana had once been the location of the national headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan, Smiley nevertheless described his youth in Hard Left as "a typical midwestern small- town life." He was one of only a handful of African American students in an otherwise all-White high school, but he did not allow this to become an obstacle. He was elected class president and voted "most likely to succeed" at his high school. Smiley observed in Hard Left that "although I lived in a nearly all-White community, I never felt 'less than' simply because of the color of my skin. I learned that people of different races can and do get along. Which says to me that we don't have to buy this race- baiting, divide-and-conquer technique the radical Right is pushing."
Smiley's love for politics began at the age of 13, when he attended a campaign speech by then-U.S. Senator Birch Bayh at an American Legion Hall. That night, he abandoned his dream of becoming a major league baseball player when he realized that politicians were in a unique position to motivate people and positively affect their lives. Upon graduation from high school, Smiley attended Indiana University in Bloomington where he landed a spot on the debate team and became active in student government. He also got involved in local politics by working for the mayor of Bloomington, Tomilea Allison. Having achieved "everything I wanted to do in college except graduate" by the end of his junior year, Smiley told the Los Angeles Times that he considered dropping out. However, a friend persuaded him to stay in school and seek work as an intern. After repeated telephone calls and letters to the office of Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, Smiley was eventually granted an internship.
After graduating from Indiana University, Smiley worked for three years as an administrative aide in the Bradley camp. At the age of 24, he was the youngest member of Mayor Bradley's executive staff. In 1991, Smiley left Bradley's staff to run for city council in Los Angeles. Running against incumbent Ruth Galanter, Smiley finished a respectable fourth in a field of 15 challengers. With no clear plan for the future, his defeat forced him to reassess his interests and options. He wrote in Hard Left, "I realized I was most fulfilled when I was helping educate, empower, and encourage people who live in the indigenous community." Undeterred by his election loss, Smiley was already planning to run again in four years. In order to keep his name before the public and maintain a political image based on current issues, he decided to tackle talk radio. "It's a high-profile job that allows you to say whatever you want--and keep in constant contact with the public," he wrote in Hard Left.
Smiley developed a 60-second daily commentary entitled "The Smiley Report," which dealt with various social and political issues of the day. He gradually obtained sponsorship, and the African American-owned radio station WGFJ in Los Angeles agreed to broadcast the commentary. "The Smiley Report" became an overwhelming success and was eventually syndicated in markets nationwide. As his reputation grew, Smiley received air time on larger Los Angeles radio stations as well as KABC-TV, Southern California's number one news station. In 1993, Smiley published a compilation of his one-minute commentaries entitled Just A Thought: The Smiley Report.
In 1994, Smiley was working as a commentator on KABC-AM's morning drive show, "The Ken and Barkley Company" when he was asked to co- host an evening talk show on KMPC-AM with Ruben Navarrette. The show, "Twentysomething Talk," was aimed at a younger, "twentysomething" audience, a demographic group not widely targeted for talk radio. "We want to get young people thinking and talking," Smiley told the Los Angeles Times in 1996. He further explained, "I think too often we go through life in our younger stages not thinking that social or political issues are going to impact us."
In 1974, Time magazine created a list that predicted 50 future American leaders. President Bill Clinton was on that list. Smiley was included on Time's list of 50 future American leaders in 1994 based, according to the magazine, on his record of "ambition, vision and community spirit." Time also praised Smiley as "a young black man unafraid to take on the white establishment," and noted his success in "engaging both blacks and whites on sensitive issues." Smiley wrote in his introduction to Hard Left that although he was "humbled and honored" to have been so distinguished by Time, he noticed that most of the other political honorees were "from the Right." It spurred him to write Hard Left: Straight Talk about the Wrongs of the Right in 1996. "We'd better raise our voices quickly," Smiley wrote, "before the rhetoric from the Right overwhelms us all. It's not that the country has gone conservative, it's that those of us who are left of center have allowed the Right to take control of the dialogue." As a result, he argued, the Right has managed to promote the idea that it is the only group that believes in God and family. In Hard Left, Smiley also discusses the political beliefs of the Left, the unrestrained bigotry of talk radio, and many other topics. Publishers Weekly called the book a "partisan, thoughtful political statement" and a "hard-hitting intellectual counterpunch that liberals will endorse."
In the summer of 1996 President Clinton introduced Smiley to Tom Joyner, host of a nationally syndicated show on WABC Radio. Two months later, according to the Washington Post, Smiley was doing commentaries for "The Tom Joyner Morning Show." In the fall of 1996, he was selected for an on-air slot at Black Entertainment Television (BET) in Washington, D.C. Smiley's audition was so impressive, that he landed the job as host of "BET Tonight" even before the other applicants had a chance to interview. Since then, he has pursued an exhausting bi-coastal schedule that brings him home to South-Central Los Angeles every week. In 1998, Smiley published the compilation On Air: The Best of Tavis Smiley on the Tom Joyner Morning Show and traveled overseas to cover President Clinton's trip to Africa in March of 1998.
Smiley has enjoyed phenomenal success since losing the Los Angeles City Council election. As Esther Iverem noted in the Washington Post, "From where he sits now, politics has lost its gloss. He's seen that he can get more accomplished quickly with one commentary than with months of trying to pass some legislation." Iverem also wrote that Smiley's commentaries "have been the catalyst for national campaigns that have registered voters, halted a planned auction of slave memorabilia, and packed a congressional hearing on legislation to wipe out affirmative action." Smiley has become a voice for the people, a frank delegate for the disenfranchised, a motivator for those who have given up. As Iverem wrote, "In an era when many African Americans feel politically impotent, he has used the media pulpit to make his voice, and as an extension, the voices of African Americans heard in usually inaccessible halls of power."
Tavis Smiley has enjoyed many great accomplishments and has traveled far from his days as a poor boy in Kokomo. However, his past successes mark only the beginning of a bright future. Smiley's driving ambition, political activism, and willingness to confront the issues of the day ensure that his voice will be heard on the American scene for many years to come.
Awards
Dollars and Sense Magazine, Outstanding Business and Professional Award, 1992; Time Magazine, List of 50 Future Leaders, 1994; Vanity Fair Hall of Fame, 1996.
Works
Writings
- Hard Left: Straight Talk about the Wrongs of the Right, Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1996.
- On Air: The Best of Tavis Smiley on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, Pines One Publishing, 1998.
Further Reading
Books
- Smiley, Tavis. Hard Left: Straight Talk about the Wrongs of the Right. New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1996.
- Los Angeles Times, July 22, 1996.
- Los Angeles Times Calendar, November 6, 1994.
- Publishers Weekly, May 27, 1996.
- Time, December 5, 1994.
- Washington Post, June 22, 1998.
— Ellen Dennis French
