Celebrity Profiles By Sandra Varner

  On a brisk Saturday afternoon, a resolute, handsome young man entered the ballroom of The Argent Hotel in San Francisco filled with cheering admirers who rose to their feet to welcome him.
    Tavis Smiley is firmly footed as one of the definitive new leaders of Black America. He reciprocated by exclaiming, “I love Black people!”
    The astute and folksy Indiana native is a Los Angeles fixture with political cachet on Capitol Hill and is in town on this particular day to keynote a wealth building seminar tour - that focuses on home ownership - sponsored by Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.
    He joked about being especially impressed by the audience’s enthusiasm given the pricing index of homes in the Bay Area.
    Smiley is in constant demand, juggling a myriad of engagements that also included a second keynote address for a charitable event that same evening in San Francisco.
    His calendar is filled through the end of the year. A successful business owner with an equally impressive real estate portfolio, Smiley is a strong and expanding voice on the horizon, that embodies the essence of the late John H. Johnson, Peter Jennings, Johnnie L. Cochran and former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, all of them leaving an impressionable mark upon the respected talk show host. In fact, he is being pegged by some to be among the “changing of the guard” and emerging “culture keepers” in contemporary American life.
    Smiley’s eclectic, late night talk show is aired on the Public Broadcasting network and his weekend radio show is aired on Public Radio International (PRI). He is also a recurring commentator on the nationally syndicated Tom Joyner Radio Show; cohosts along with Joyner an annual symposium with Black intelligentsia on the C-SPAN cable network; authors books; fields numerous speaking requests; has endowed a School of Communications at Texas Southern University in Houston; and is just on the verge of his 41st birthday.
    I sat with him briefly in San Francisco to talk about his robust career –
Sandra Varner (SV): Hearing of the passing of John H. Johnson must have come as a shock to you. I understand he was to participate in your Soul Success seminar this coming October.
Tavis Smiley (TS): First of all, I was honored to be asked to speak at his funeral service. He was an authentic American hero whose entrepreneurial exploits and exploits in the business world will be talked about for years to come. He’s an example for each of us of what can be done. Anybody who could take $500 in the ‘40s, in the heat of segregation during the height of ‘Jim Crow’ and build a multimillion dollar empire - that he wholly owned even unto his death - is an example for all of us of what can be done. I am very inspired by his legacy.
SV: When you talk about the hope and industrialism of John H. Johnson, how do you connect the dots to the Wells Fargo wealth building tour that you are currently attached to?
TS: Well, I think that Wells Fargo may be optimistic about tapping into the hope of Black people who want to own homes. I think as Black people we must remain hopeful despite economic times. I feel good about the fact that Wells Fargo is interested in doing this and we need to hold them accountable and take advantage of these home loans and business loans that they are offering. Being mindful of the fact that it’s not about income, it’s about wealth building and I hope that comes across in these tours that we are doing.
SV: Given your busy schedule and the diversity of the crowds you speak to on this tour, how do you ready yourself for each audience?
TS: I take an organic approach to each audience. I certainly don’t have a patented speech because each audience in every city is different, but, there are certain things that are the same across the country. Every time I hit a podium and not just on this tour, pretty much wherever I go, I like to feel ‘led’ as to what I should speak on for that particular day, or a particular time, to a particular audience. Alot of it has to do with the ‘Who, When, Where and What;’ and, if you’re trying to be topical and be on point, it’s better to be organic. That’s just how it works best for me.
SV: As a broadcast heavyweight and political insider, what is your forecast for America and not just Black Americans?
TS: I say that the ‘State of Black America’ is tenuous at best; one of the things we’re working on is a book titled, The Covenant, based on an annual panel discussion with Black America’s think tank, shown on the C-SPAN network. We will be releasing that book in February 2006 during our next “State of the Black Union Symposium” that will be held in Houston, TX. The book will contain a list of the top 10 things we all agree on that the body politic needs to address. We need to make a covenant amongst ourselves to do better with these issues. And, for the first time in America’s history, we will have a document that we believe in; that we can then use to say to the Republicans and Democrats –because this will be a non-partisan document—here is a document that ‘Black America’ believes in, now, what are YOU going to do about it? This document comes from Black America. To not address it says that you are absolutely disrespecting Black voters and that’s the purpose of The Covenant. So, we will have something for generations to come, to use –although it may change over the years— as a utensil to respect the Black vote.

   The Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Wealth Building tour featuring Smiley will visit the following cities: Richmond, VA; Dallas, TX; San Francisco, CA; Washington, DC; Philadelphia, PA; Chicago, IL and Baltimore, MD.
    In addition to Smiley, other presenters include acclaimed financial authorities such as Kelvin Boston, host of PBS’s financial affairs series Money- Wise with Kelvin Boston.
    Highlights from Tavis Smiley’s biography:
• High profile interviews with the President of the United States, Fidel Castro and Pope John Paul II
• Time selected Smiley as one of America’s 50 most promising young leaders. Newsweek profiled him as one of the “20 people changing how Americans get their news” and dubbed him one of the nation’s “captains of the airwaves.”
• Started his career as an aide to former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, has authored eight books and has his own imprint (Smiley Books) with Hay House.
• Texas Southern University recently honored Smiley with the opening of The Tavis Smiley School of Communications and The Tavis Smiley Center for Professional Media Studies, making Smiley the youngest African American to ever have a professional school and center named after him on a college or university campus. Smiley cemented his commitment to TSU with a $1million gift to the Center.
• The mission of his nonprofit organization—Tavis Smiley Foundation—is to enlighten, encourage and empower Black youth. Tavis Smiley Presents, a subsidiary of The Smiley Group, Inc., brings ideas and people together through symposiums, seminars, forums and town hall meetings.
• Has received numerous honorary doctorate degrees including one from his alma mater, Indiana University.
• One of ten children, Smiley is single and lives in Los Angeles. In his spare time, he enjoys a good game of Scrabble with friends.

What People Are Saying About Tavis Smiley... The Los Angeles Times says he’s on the “fast track, left lane.” The New York Post screamed, “Look out Larry King here comes Tavis Smiley!” The Washington Post declared that he’s “winning friends and influencing people.” The Philadelphia Inquirer says Smiley is “one of the most important political voices of his generation.” The Cleveland Plain Dealer summed up Tavis’ appeal best: “In the age of high-decibel, inyour- face talk shows, Tavis Smiley keeps the volume low and the content high. He also gets the best guests in broadcasting - presidents, the pope, A-list entertainers.
    Smiley’s style of easy and engaging conversation makes them all feel comfortable. And it works.” Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Daily News columnist E.R. Shipp writes: “He does what too little of talk radio or television does these days: conducts civil conversations with a broad spectrum of politicians, newsmakers, performers and writers in a forum where one first has to declare one’s political alliances. He’s comfortable with conservatives, liberals and the undeclared; with the profound and the profane, with elder statesmen and the hip-hop nation. With such stratification in the country, he provides one place that helps promote dialogues that might not otherwise take place before audiences who might not otherwise think that they have anything in common.”
    DeWayne Wickham in USA Today declares that Smiley is “arguably the nation’s most influential black journalist.” Vanity Fair inducted him into their Hall of Fame.