Damu Smith, December 6, 1951 – May 5, 2006
By Hazel Trice Edney
For the NNPA
“It’s unbelievable that he’s not walking this Earth anymore,” Lauren Drummond said about her uncle, the internationally recognized environmental and civil rights activist Damu Smith, who died Friday, May 5, 2006 in Washington, D.C., of colon cancer. He was 54.
“He was very encouraging, affirming. We’ll miss that very much. He was such a life force. But he definitely did what he was called to do.”
He was born Leroy Wesley Smith in St. Louis on December 6, 1951, the son of the late Sylvester and Vernice Smith, and grew up in Carr Square Village. He changed his name to “Damu” in the early ‘70s. The name means “blood” in Swahili. He said it signified “the blood that I am willing to shed for the liberation of my people.”
From his humble roots, Smith made a lasting impact on the movements for environmental justice and peace.
John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace USA, said, “Damu Smith was one of the most motivated and committed activists that Greenpeace has ever known.”
“I saw him take juvenile delinquents and kids with serious learning disabilities and engage on environmental issues,” recalls Lisa Finaldi, Greenpeace campaigns director. “He inspired so many to no longer be spectators when they saw injustice.”
Smith worked for 10 years as a toxics campaigner and national associate director for Greenpeace. He left the organization five years ago to establish the National Black Environmental Justice Network.
In recent years, Smith also became well-known for his anti-war activism through his Black Voices for Peace organization that led several major marches on Washington.
His niece said that near the end of his life, Smith has accepted the call to preach and was preparing for divinity school.
“He was always preaching, even if it was about toxic waste or dumping in Cancer Alley, so this was just a natural progression from what he was already doing as an activist,” Drummond said.
Smith was first inspired as an activist during a field trip to Cairo, Ill., when he was a 17-year-old student at Vashon High School. There he met singer Nina Simone, civil rights legends Ralph Abernathy and Julian Bond, as well as poet Amiri Baraka.
Seeing the bullet holes where white supremacists had been shooting into the homes of black people, Smith later recalled, “I resolved then at the age of 17, I’m in this forever.”
During his college years at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minn., where he majored in political science and served as president of the Black Student Union, he led a takeover of the administrative building, demanding a black studies program.
Smith was a leader in the South Africa anti-apartheid movement and in campaigns against gun violence and police brutality. He was associate director of the Washington Office of the American Friends Service Committee and traveled internationally to support movements for peace and justice.
Drummond lived with him in Washington one year when she was a student at Howard University, when she learned about maintaining a vegan diet and saw an activist in action.
“He would be up, burning the midnight oil, writing speeches, organizing, working around the clock,” his niece said. “He was so passionate about his work.”
Smith worked to expose corporations that targeted poor black neighborhoods, including the infamous “Cancer Alley” along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
Smith brought together opposing sides of a conflict between the Japan-based Shintec Corp. and residents of Louisiana. After nearly six years of marches, rallies and even a congressional hearing, Shintec backed down from its plan to build the world’s largest vinyl plant in the region.
Smith used much of the past year to help save lives by encouraging others to get colonoscopies, something that he had failed to do despite the fact that his father had died of colon cancer at 53.
“He didn’t go regularly to the doctor. I don’t know if it was a matter of not having health insurance,” his niece said.
“When he found out he had colon cancer last year, he was in the final stages. He admitted he hadn’t done what he was supposed to do and encouraged others. I and my mother and brothers have had colonoscopies.”
Despite its high incidence, colorectal cancer is one of the most detectable and, if found early enough, most treatable forms of cancer.
As Smith’s health declined (without health insurance), an extraordinary network responded with an outpouring of support, including a star-studded gala last July that brought together artist activists Danny Glover, Bernice Reagon and Sonia Sanchez.
At the George Washington University Hospital where he died, he was “surrounded by friends and family that spilled down hospital corridors,” according to his family.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Sylvester Smith and Vernice Smith, and a brother Eric Smith.
He is survived by a daughter, Asha Moore Smith, age 13, of Washington, D.C.; a sister; Sylnice Williams of St. Louis; two brothers, Richard Smith and Leslie Smith, both of St. Louis; a significant other, Adeleke Foster; two nephews, six nieces and thousands of comrades and friends.
A private family service will he held Friday, May 12 in Washington, D.C. A public celebration of his life will be held in Washington on May 20 in correlation with the birthday of Malcolm X. A local public service will be held, tentatively, June 3, at Living Word Apostolic Church in Pasadena Park, Mo.
The family is working to establish a foundation in Damu Smith’s name to carry on his legacy and a trust fund for his daughter. For more information, visit www.damusmith.org.
