Thank you for your recent coverage and editorial regarding the life and death of Damu Smith. When I lived in Washington, D.C. in the 1980s and 1990s, Damu Smith was an already legendary activist who presented a role model for folks like me struggling to find a progressive path that would connect the global to the local and the personal to the political.
I first became aware of him through his work on environmental justice; however, he was equally at home in the anti-apartheid/African justice movement, in conversations around D.C. statehood and in the progressive cultural politics of art, music and poetry.
More recently, I “renewed” my acquaintance with this extraordinary thinker through his broadcasts on WPFW-FM, the Pacifica Radio Station located in Washington. His thoughts provided a focus for a range of voices discussing America’s current foreign policy misadventure.
And to think, all during this time, I had no idea that Damu Smith’s start was here in St. Louis at Carr Square Village. It truly does take a village.
Will Winter
St. Louis