HOST INTERVIEW
The Man With a Plan Tavis Smiley’s Agenda for Getting America Back on Track
BY ALEX LASSITER
M
uch like Al Gore, talk show host-turnedauthor Tavis Smiley claims he has no interest in running for public office. But from his actions of late, which include hosting his annual State of the Black Union symposium in February as part of the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown; releasing the bestselling book The Covenent In Action, a sequel to last year’s The Covenant With Black America; and announcing plans to host two presidential forums to be broadcast on PBS this summer, it’s clear Smiley genuinely wants to make a difference. What follows is a transcript of our in-depth discussion on matters ranging from the African-American imprint on American history to the sorry state of our nation’s political system, and what each and every one of us can do to help fix it.
How did you initially get involved with the 400th anniversary Jamestown celebration? I was asked by the governor and the people of Virginia to get involved in this, primarily because when the story is told of the founding of America, it is most often told through the eyes of the immigrant arriving at Ellis Island. That is a powerful and poignant story that needs to be told, but it is not the only story that needs to be told. There is this place called Jamestown, Virginia, where my ancestors and the ancestors of millions of other African-Americans first arrived. Before the Plymouth pilgrims, you first have the Jamestown Africans, and that untold back-story of America needs to be told. These Africans, and others, oftentimes arrived at Jamestown against their will, and this year marks the 400th anniversary commemoration. I try not to say “celebration” because, for African-Americans, there’s nothing to celebrate here per se. But it is a commemoration of what it means for black folk to be on this journey in America for 400 years, which is pretty significant. Considering that controversial past, why did you decide to hold your annual sy posium at Jamestown this year? To try to raise awareness of what Jamestown means and what the African-American imprint on America is all about. That imprint is undeniable, and hopefully in this poignant year of our being here we can get some conversation going about this other story that makes American what she is. Organizers solicited advisory councils representing black Americans, who wanted an important national symposium. Did they have a specific agenda in mind when they asked you to host it, or did basically they turn it over to you and let you do your thing? The latter. For eight consecutive years during the month of February, which of course is Black History Month, I have organized and moder ated what has become the preeminent conversation about the critical issues that confront black America. We call it the State of the Black Union, and they televise it annually on C-SPAN. Interestingly, the two people who first made contact and asked me to do this happen to be two well-known actors who live in Virginia, Tim Reid (best-known as Venus Flytrap on WKRP in Cincinnati) and his wife, Daphne. They own a TV studio in Virginia, and Daphne happens to be on the state committee, so they asked me to go to lunch a few years ago when I was giving a speech in Richmond. They had been dispatched by then-governor Mark Warner to talk to me about my interest in being involved, so it just became a matter of using Jamestown 400 as a backdrop for our conversation. Did the historical context of Jamestown add anything to this year’s event? Absolutely. The timing worked out perfectly, because we released The Covenant In Action, the companion to The Covenant With Black America, which went to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list last year. The setting, timing and everything just worked out perfectly, with about 15,000 PG 26 • insiteatlanta.com • April 2007
coming to Virginia from all across the country. It was by far the largest gathering we’ve ever had, with overflow rooms and people who couldn’t get in and had to turn around and go home. I actually clocked this in the car I was riding in, and traffic was backed up for over three miles at 7AM with people just trying to get into the parking lot. How would you say the state of black America has changed most in the years since you started hosting the symposium? There’s one school of thought inside black America that says that what we do is talk too much; that all we’re doing is talking, but not acting. I don’t subscribe to that. I think that there is value in having rich dialogue. I think what’s wrong with America, quite frankly, is that we are too often caught up in monologue and never get around to having
Do you think it’s helping to change the way people in the black community view this sort of intellectual exchange of ideas? I really do. C-SPAN has gotten more requests for this videotape than any other show for eight consecutive years. All across the country, there’s a ripple-like domino effect, with this national conversation inspiring African-Americans to conduct local conversations, like the State of Black Cleveland and the State of Black Atlanta. But what’s changed most dramatically is the fact that, now that these two bestselling books have come out, it has raised a whole level of appreciation inside the publishing world for the fact that African-Americans read. A few years ago, with the impact of Terry McMillan, they discovered that black people read fiction, but now they know that we read nonfiction as well. And now we have an agenda around which black
I THINK THAT THERE IS VALUE IN HAVING RICH DIALOGUE. I THINK WHAT’S WRONG WITH AMERICA, QUITE FRANKLY, IS THAT WE ARE TOO OFTEN CAUGHT UP IN MONOLOGUE AND NEVER GET AROUND TO HAVING MUCH DIALOGUE. much dialogue. When you go to Washington, on every other corner in the nation’s capital, you see a Conservative think tank, from the Manhattan Institute and AEI to the Heritage Foundation. There’s really only one black think tank, called the Joint Center for Political Studies, which is centered around and dedicated to the issues of black people. I’m not casting aspersion on [Conservative think tanks], but I’m saying that they understand the value in dialogue, reading, writing and research. Our symposium essentially becomes like an annual black think tank, empowering the millions of people who watch it on television.
people can start to act, with books outlining what the agenda is and how to put it into action. I literally just got off a conference call: When we were at Jamestown, the president of PBS joined us to announce that this summer I’m going to be moderating two presidential forums live in prime time. The first will be the Democrats at Howard
University on June 28, then at Morgan State on September 27 for the Republicans, and we’ll be talking about the issues in these books with all of the candidates. That is historic in and of itself. Talk to me a little bit about your Covenant with Black America: How do you hope to impact the lives of African-Americans over the next few years? If you take the word “black” out of the covenant, what you get is a progressive agenda for moving America forward. We see this as no different than what Dr. King did during his era. His leadership came out of black America and was on behalf of advancing black America, but the whole nation benefited from it. So what I’m hoping people will get out of this is the fact that you are the leader you’ve been looking for. That’s the message we keep delivering. Make a covenant with yourself, your community, your creator, to use the skill and talent you have to make a meaningful contribution. I believe that our love and service to each other is the rent we pay for the space we occupy. Dr. King, Gandhi and Nelson Mandela all changed the world as we know it, but at the center of the message was this notion of loving and serving everyday people. I’m hoping that this text will inspire people to care for even the least among us, and to realize that everybody has value and has a contribution to make. A strong community does not need a leader, because if everybody becomes a committee of one, it fundamentally and unapologetically changes the definition of leadership. I’m not trying to run for office, so it’s not about that, but I do want the people who are running to understand these issues. We live in a world where, if we don’t grab hold of the reality of people being responsible for making some sort of contribution, if we keep thinking all these problems are somebody else’s, we’re going to literally and figuratively explode, as a nation and as a planet. How do you feel about the state of the American political system as we enter the early stages of campaigning for the 2008 elections? I think our democracy is dysfunctional and everybody knows it. The reason a guy like Barack Obama can get the traction that he’s getting is that people see him as a panacea, a fresh face, something new. I’m hoping that the energy that has been infused into the campaign season already, in part because of who’s running– Hilary, Barack, a Latino like Bill Richardson on the right, and Giuliani– in part because of the condition that we find our country in after six years of President Bush, and in part because of the Covenant, will energize this contest in an interesting way. For young people reading this story who might be frustrated with the entire American political system, who maybe feel that their vote doesn’t matter or their voices aren’t heard by the powers-that-be, what advice would you give them on effecting positive change? When you study history, there is no major movement for social change, whether in this country or anywhere in the world, that did not have at its apex the involvement of young people. Nothing ever changes for social progress without young people at the nucleus. Dr. King may be the greatest leader we’ve ever produced, but the Civil Rights movement didn’t really turn until young folk took to the streets. If you go to South Africa, Nelson Mandela was another great human being who went to prison for 27 years, but when those kids took to the streets of Soweto, it changed the conversation about apartheid. In Tiananmen Square in China, when those kids laid their bodies out in the streets in front of those tanks and dared the tanks to run them over, it changed the conversation. The point is that the courage, conviction and commitment of young people is absolutely essential to any real movement for social change, and I think it’s important for young folk to understand just how valuable their contribution is.
