Clint Smith III: Passing the word, doing the work (ft. Charlotte Rose LaMotte, Ra'mya Davis, Chris Cole, Kayla Waysome, & Scott Rechler)

Often, we overlook the power of young people to create change. Yes to Youth is a podcast series getting to know changemakers who started early and are making a real impact, in spite of and often because of their age and identity. Yes to Youth is presented by Let’s Care in collaboration with LearnServe International. Your host is Matt Scott, creator of Let's Care and longtime LearnServe volunteer.

Today's episode features a bonus episode centering Clint Smith III, recipient of LearnServe's 2022 Civic Champion Award and featuring the voices of LearnServe Co-Director and CEO Scott Rechler and alumni Charlotte Rose LaMotte, Ra'mya Davis, Chris Cole, and Kayla Waysome.

Civic Champion Awardee Clint Smith

Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of the narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller and was selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 best books of 2021. He is also the author of the poetry collection Counting Descent, which won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award.

Clint has received fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New America, the Emerson Collective, the Art For Justice Fund, Cave Canem, and the National Science Foundation. 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 2014 National Poetry Slam champion and a 2017 recipient of the Jerome J. Shestack Prize from the American Poetry Review.

Previously, Clint taught high school English in Prince George’s County, Maryland where, in 2013, he was named the Christine D. Sarbanes Teacher of the Year by the Maryland Humanities Council. While teaching, Clint served as a LearnServe Advisor, nominating and supporting students through the LearnServe Fellows, Incubator, and Abroad Programs.He is the host of the YouTube series Crash Course Black American History.

Clint received his B.A. in English from Davidson College and his Ph.D. in Education from Harvard University. Born and raised in New Orleans, he currently lives in Maryland with his wife and their two children.

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