Tavis smiley
Tavis Smiley (born September 13, 1964 in Gulfport , Mississippi ) is an American journalist, writer, television and radio presenter.
Life
Tavis Smiley was born in 1964 to an African American family in the US state of Mississippi. After his stepfather, an Army officer, was transferred to Grissom Air Force Base near Peru, Indiana, he spent most of his youth in a trailer park in Bunk Hill, where his parents' mobile home was housed. In addition to his own seven siblings, Smiley grew up with five cousins - a total of twelve other children - who moved into his parents' household after their mother, an aunt Smiley, was killed in a violent crime. Through the deep religiosity of his mother Joyce and the frequent visits to the Pentecostal Apostolic Church, Smiley himself was strongly influenced at this time.
In 1982, Smiley graduated from Maconaquah High School. He then studied at Indiana University , where he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi student association . When one of his college friends was shot dead by a policeman who claimed to have acted in self-defense, Smiley began to become more politically and socially involved: he organized protests that challenged the police's claims and tried to prove the innocence of the man killed.
After temporarily dropping out of college and working in the office of Tom Bradley , the first African American mayor of Los Angeles , Smiley returned to Indiana University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in public policy in 1986. He then worked for Bradley until 1990.
In 1991, Smiley tried in vain for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council. After the failure of this political ambition, he traveled to Ghana with Maya Angelou and began working as a radio commentator. For a radio station in Los Angeles he first moderated one-minute clips, which were titled The Smiley Report and which dealt with current topics of national or local affairs that were of particular interest to the African American population group. Bad then, Smiley co-hosted a radio talk show broadcast in the greater LA area, which he used as a forum for presenting his views on topics such as race and politics. Again and again he criticized the “institutional racism”, which particularly restricts the life chances of black Americans. Since nationally distributed media such as Newsweek , the Washington Post and Time Magazine brought reports about Smiley over time, he gradually gained national fame. In terms of content, he continued to focus primarily on the problems of the Afro-American community, such as discrimination phenomena and practices in the media and in the state apparatus or the support of purposes such as honoring Rosa Parks with the medal of honor of the Congress.
In 1996, Smiley became a commentator on the Tom Joyner Morning Show , a nationally broadcast format aimed particularly at African Americans. In the course of this activity, Smiley soon became close friends with presenter Tom Joyner, with whom he has regularly organized so-called Town Hall meetings since 2000 , which are public gatherings for information and advisory purposes known as “The State of the Black Union “Operate. This event, which alludes to the US President's annual " State of the Union Address " on its behalf , deals with the situation of the black population as well as the social advances and setbacks of the African American group has made or suffered within the previous year. For this purpose, African-American civil rights activists, teachers, university professors and other knowledgeable persons will be invited as discussants, who will analyze the problems under discussion and offer solutions in a panel discussion. In addition, Smiley founded the Tavis Smiley Foundation in 1999 , which finances programs to educate future leaders of the African American population.
Smiley's public fame also grew at this time through his frequent appearances as a guest commentator and discussant in news and information programs on the major broadcasters ABC, CNN and MSNBC.
As a host, Smiley has hosted the radio show BET Tonight since 1996 , which he left in 2001 after the station did not renew his contract due to a falling out after an interview with Sarah Jane Olsen that Smiley had sold to the television station ABC: While he himself claimed to have first offered it to his own employer, who refused to buy the interview, BET insisted that Smiley never offered the interview to the broadcaster, but rather approached ABC immediately. The announcement of Smiley's dismissal sparked protests at the broadcaster and a boycott call by his friend (and BET moderato Joyner), supported by the fact that Smiley's contract did not contain a clause requiring him to offer interviews to his own employer first ( if he has not done this anyway, as he says himself), before referring her to other institutions. Smiley switched instead as a presenter to the radio station National Public Radio (NPR), for which he led through the program The Tavis Smiley Show until 2004 .
Smiley is currently moderating the late-night talk show Tavis Smiley for the television station PBS . He also designed a weekly two-hour program for the radio in the PRI program.
Smiley finally gave up his work as a commentator on the Tom Joynor program in June 2008 after complaints from listeners about his harsh criticism of the US presidential candidate Barack Obama had accumulated. Joynor commented on Smiley Step with the words: "The real reason is that he can't take the hate he's been getting regarding the Barack issue - hate from the black people that he loves so much."
In addition to his work for radio and television, Smiley has also published several books in which he devotes himself to his political and social concerns. The most successful of these writings was The Covenant with Black America , published in 2006 , which temporarily reached first place on the New York Times bestseller list for non-fiction books. In addition to the classic print medium of books, Smiley has written various blog posts for the Huffington Post website .
honors and awards
In 2004, Texas Southern University honored Smiley by opening the named Tavis Smiley School of Communications and the Tavis Smiley Center for Professional Media Studies . This makes Smiley the youngest African American to have a college institution named after.
In addition, Smiley received various honorary doctorates: For example that of his own alma mater, Indiana University, and in May 2008 the doctorate of Connecticut College .
Fonts
- Doing What's Right. How to Fight for What You Believe - And Make a Difference .
- Hard left .
- Keeping the Faith. Stories of Love, Courage, Healing, and Hope from Black America .
- How to Make Black America Better. Leading African Americans Speak Out .
- On Air. The Best of Tavis Smiley on the Tom Joyner Morning Show .
- The Covenant with Black America , 2006.
- What I know for sure. My Story of Growing Up in America , 2006.
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Smiley, Tavis |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American journalist, writer, television and radio host |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 13, 1964 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Gulfport , Mississippi |