From Staff Reports

UNC Asheville will welcome award-winning author and journalist Clint Smith for its annual commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. at 7 p.m. Jan. 18 inLipinsky Auditorium.

Smith’s keynote address, “Our History, Reimagined,” is free and open to all. No advanced registration or tickets are required.

During “Our History, Reimagined,” Smith, UNCA noted in a press release, "will explore civil rights movements over the decades, as well as how memorials tie into our perceptions and collective memories of these eras.

"He approaches the audience to consider complicated truths about the United States, the country we live in and ruminate on how this history has shaped the contemporary social, political, and cultural landscape of our world today," the release stated.

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 No. 1 New York Times bestseller and a 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award Winner for Nonfiction.

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.

Outside of his work as a writer, Smith is the host of the YouTube series "Crash Course Black American History."

His two TED Talks — “The Danger of Silence” and “How to Raise a Black Son in America” — collectively have been viewed more than 9 million times.

Previously, Smith 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.

He currently teaches writing and literature in the D.C. Central Detention Facility.