Sam Smiith bio

 Sam Smith. . .

· Is a journalist, activist and social critic who has been at the forefront of new ideas and new politics for nearly seven decades. He has been editing alternative publications since 1964, longer than almost anyone in the country.

· Is the author of four well acclaimed books, two at the request of editors - the latest of which is Why Bother?: Getting a Life in a Locked Down Land, which was an Utne Reader staff pick and was selected by Working Assets as one of its books of the month.

· Is an award-winning alternative journalist and editor of The Progressive Review.

· Has helped to start 6 organizations. Was one of the organizers of the Association of State Green Parties - forerunner of the national Green Party - and, in the 1970s, was a co-founder of the DC Statehood Party, which held public office for more than two decades. Others included the DC Humanities Council and Fair Vote, which helped inspire the current ranked choice voting effforts.

· Is the author of Sam Smith's Great American Political Repair Manual published by WW Norton in America and Europe and excerpted in Utne Reader. His Shadows of Hope: A Freethinker's Guide to Politics in the Time of Clinton (1994) won cross-ideological praise.

· Wrote Captive Capital: Colonial Life in Modern Washington, published in 1974, which is still cited as an authority on the local city.

Wrote Why Bother? Getting a Life in a Locked Down Land,  which Ralph Nader described as "wonderfully engaging and erudite."

· Has been published in a number of anthologies including Media & Democracy (1996), You Are Being Lied To (2001), Censored 2000 (2001), 50 Reasons Not to Vote for Bush (2004), and Quest: Reading the World and Arguing for Change (2006)

· One of his essays, An Apology to Young Americans, was turned into a musical number by Yale associate professor of music John Halle and have been performed in several cities.

· Has had articles published in over 30 publications including the Washington Post, Washington Star, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, San Jose Mercury News, Planning Magazine, Illustrated London News, Washington World, Regardie's Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Harper's, Washington Monthly, Washington Tribune, Washington City Paper, Nashville Scene, Washington History, Designer/Builder, Progressive Populist, North Coast Express, Yes!, Potomac Review, London Time Out, Counterpunch, Neiman Watchdog, Green Horizon Quarterly, LondonTelegraph, Southern Arizona News Examiner, Working Waterfront and Utne Reader.

Selected in 2009 as a New Media Hero by the staff of the Alternet news service. Other awards:

- Washington Review of the Arts Cultural & Artistic Achivement Award, 1977

- DC Gray Panthers Award, 1984

- DC City Paper: Best DC political columnist 1987

- DC Community Humanities Council award, 1988

- Alternative Press Award, 1992

- Citizen of the Year 2024, Freeport Maine (along with his wife)

· Is a native Washingtonian who covered his first Washington story in 1957 as a 19-year-old radio news reporter. He worked for WWDC and for Deadline Washington News Service.

- Has served on the board of the Fund for Constitutional Government, Commercial Alert, the DC United Black Fund, Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, Project on Government Oversight, and the DC NAACP Police & Justice Task Force

· Was American correspondent for the Illustrated London News, 1980-82

· Has been a radio newsman and a guest commentator on radio and television. For five years he appeared weekly television, and later radio, panels otherwise comprised of black journalists. Has appeared on over 700 radio and TV talk shows ranging from NPR to the O'Reilly Factor. Was a guest comentor Washington's WRC-TV in 1976 and on WAMU-FM 1980-1986. Was a guest host of the Fred Fiske Show as well as guest commentator and cohost of Washington Review of the Arts, both on WAMU

· The arts section of his DC Gazette featured the work of Tom Shales (later TV critic for the Washington Post), Roland Freeman (later a nationally recognized photographer), and Patricia Griffith (later president of the Pen-Faulkner Foundation). In the mid-seventies, the arts section was spun off as a separate publication, the Washington Review, which lasted 25 years and won a number of awards.

· The DC Gazette early published a number of writers and cartoonists who later became far more widely known including Tony Auth, Dave Barry and Bill Griffith. The Gazette also published what was then the only urban planning comic strip in America as well as the first column by a prison inmate to appear in a non-penal publication.

· Was a leading journalistic voice against the Washington Post-backed plan to build miles of freeways that would have made DC look like an east coast Los Angeles.

· Was the first writer to call for DC statehood and explain how it could be achieved without a constitutional amendment. Also advocated urban statehood for largest metro areas.

. In the early 1970s became one of the first publications to support a revival of light rail and other alternatives to hyper-expensive and inefficient subway systems.

·Was an early advocate of bikeways.

- Has been a vigorous opponent of destructive urban planning practices .

·Since the 1960s has been a critic of the punitive approach to drug addiction.

- Was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s, assisting the then chair, Marion Barry, as his media aide.

· Wrote a 1990 article on the second S&L scandal -- the S&L bailout itself -- that was selected by Utne Reader as one of the top ten undercovered stories of the decade.

· In 1992, hosted a meeting at his home that led to the formation of what became known as Fair Vote, the leading advocated for instant runoff voting.

· Has been co-plaintiff in seven public interest law suits, three of them successful. Was a plaintiff in a suit against the president and Congress for denying democracy to the District of Columbia, which was ultimately rejected by the Supreme Court.

· Was elected as an advisory neighborhood commissioner in the Washington's first neighborhood elections.

· Served as home & school association president for a DC public elementary school.

· Was a founding member of the DC Communities Humanities Council, the local funding body of the National Endowment on the Humanities.

· Was operations officer and navigator aboard a Coast Guard cutter and later executive officer of the Baltimore Coast Guard reserve unit.

· Graduated from Harvard in 1959 with a major in anthropology. Was news director of Harvard radio station WHRB.  He was also on the Harvard sailing team, played regular jazz gigs and worked for the Harvard News Office and Fund for Harvard College.

· Was a member of the Maine state crew in the New England men's sailing championship, 1956. Had first place taken away in one college race for having used a woman crew.

· Spent his teen years in Philadelphia. Attended Germantown Friends School and took part in his first political campaign at the age of 12. Started his first alternative publication, a family newspaper, when he was 13.

· For four decades was a semi-professional musician (first drums, then stride piano and vocals). He had his own group - the Decoland Band - for a number of years and was the co-composer of a musical revue. 

· Was a member of the board (and president) of the Wolfe's Neck Farm Foundation, a Maine community-based alternative agricultural center which created the largest natural beef operation in the northeastern part of the country. It is now a dairy operation with popular campsites, and summer programs for kids.

· Was a co-owner and trustee of Philadelphia's classical music station, WFLN, for 14 years.

- Married to historian and author Kathryn Schneider Smith, who has written several books - most recently Washington At Home - and started Cultural Tourism DC.. Currently a member of the executive committee of the Maine Historical Society, she is the former chair of the advisors to the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Historical Society of Washington. They have two sons.