Clint Smith, a #1 New York Times bestselling author and award-winning poet, will join the Randolph-Macon community for a conversation about history, American reckonings, and the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the feature event of the College’s celebration of the Civil Rights leader. 

The conversation, moderated by Assistant Professor of History and Director of Black Studies Dr. Donelle Boose, will take place on Tuesday, January 19 at 6:30 p.m. inside Blackwell Auditorium. The event, sponsored by the President’s Office with additional support from the Humanities Initiatives, is presented in partnership with the Virginia Center for the Book. It will be free and open to the public, but your RSVP is requested here. 

Smith’s book How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism, the Stowe Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and was selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2021. He is also the author of two books of poetry, Above Ground and Counting Descent, both of which won the Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. 

Smith serves as a staff writer for The Atlantic, and his forthcoming book, Just Beneath the Soil: World War II Through the Eyes of Its Last Witnesses, will be published on May 4, 2027. 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 former National Poetry Slam champion and a recipient of the Jerome J. Shestack Prize from the American Poetry Review. 

“Dr. Clint Smith is a poetic scholar who guides us into the uncomfortable but urgent conversations that make a genuinely pluralistic and healthy society possible,” Boose said. “I am excited to speak with him about how America can activate the dreams of Dr. King, rather than simply commemorate them.” 

Previously, Smith taught high school English in Prince George’s County, Maryland where he was named the Christine D. Sarbanes Teacher of the Year by the Maryland Humanities Council. He received his B.A. from Davidson College and his Ph.D. from Harvard University. 

In addition to the conversation with Clint Smith, RMC’s SERVE program will host an MLK Day of Service on Monday, January 18 from 2-4 p.m. in the Dollar Tree Room inside Brock Commons. Volunteers will assemble personal care kits to support individuals and families accessing FeedMore community pantries and Randolph-Macon College’s Hull Closet.