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Clint Smith: To Protest And To Reckon With Racism In America

Part 4 of the TED Radio Hour episode Lessons From The Summer

The killing of George Floyd by a police officer sparked massive protests nationwide. Writer, teacher, and scholar Clint Smith reflects on that moment through conversation, letters, and poetry. A version of this segment was originally heard in the June episode, Clint Smith.

About Clint Smith

Clint Smith is a writer, poet, teacher, and Emerson Fellow at New America. He is the author of the poetry collection, Counting Descent, which was published in 2016. He is a staff writer at The Atlantic, and his writing has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, the Harvard Educational Review, among others. His forthcoming non-fiction book, How The Word Is Passed, explores how different sites across the country reckon with, or fail to reckon with, their relationship to the history of slavery. It will be published next year.

Smith's two TED Talks, "The Danger of Silence" and "How to Raise a Black Son in America," have collectively garnered more than seven million views. The latter was featured on the TED Radio Hour episode, The Consequences of Racism.

Previously, Smith taught high school English in Prince George's County, Maryland. He currently teaches writing and literature in the D.C. Central Detention Facility.

He received his B.A. from Davidson College and his Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he studied the sociology of education.

You can follow us on Facebook @TEDRadioHour and email us at TEDRadioHour@npr.org.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Manoush Zomorodi is the host of TED Radio Hour. She is a journalist, podcaster and media entrepreneur, and her work reflects her passion for investigating how technology and business are transforming humanity.
Christina Cala is a producer for Code Switch. Before that, she was at the TED Radio Hour where she piloted two new episode formats — the curator chat and the long interview. She's also reported on a movement to preserve African American cultural sites in Birmingham and followed youth climate activists in New York City.
Matthew Cloutier is a producer for TED Radio Hour. While at the show, he has focused on stories about science and the natural world, ranging from operating Mars rovers to exploring Antarctica's hidden life. He has also pitched these kinds of episodes, including "Through The Looking Glass" and "Migration."
Sanaz Meshkinpour
[Copyright 2024 NPR]