NEWS: NASSS Member Earl Smith Honored

Dear All:

It is my pleasure to announce that one of your NASSS colleagues was
honored last night.

Wake Forest University and Winston-Salem State University have been
collaborating for the last 5 years on a celebration of Martin Luther
King's life and legacy.

This year the cross-campus committee made up mostly of students and a few
staff, decided to honor a student and a faculty on each campus with the
first annual "Martin Luther King Building the Dream Award."

Earl Smith, Professor of Sociology and Distinguished Rubin Professor and
Director of American Ethnic Studies was the first Wake Forest faculty
member to be honored with the building the dream award.

He was honored for his work mentoring students and faculty, for
challenging the administration on the declining diversity on our campus,
for the innovative course he designed and teaches, Social Stratification
in the DEEP SOUTH (see the article "Home Grown Activitsim" on this course
on the Sociologists Without Borders website:
http://sociologistswithoutborders.org/contributions/hattery-smith_-_homegrown_activism.pdf
) and for his work on the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice.
Darryl Hunt is an African American man from Winston-Salem who served 18
years in prison for the rape and murder of a white woman that he did not
commit. Mr. Hunt was exonerated in 2003 and has dedicated his life to
identifying other innocent inmates in the North Carolina prison system and
connecting them to the Innocence Project whose staff work for their
exoneration. Professor Smith's role on this project is that he invites
Mr. Hunt to campus as often as possible to speak to classes and in open
forums about Social Justice. Professor Smith also coordinates student
volunteers who process all of the communication between the inmates in
North Carolina jails and prisons and Mr. Hunt. Through their work they
have helped Mr. Hunt identify at least 3 inmates who look like they, too,
have been incarcerated for crimes they have not committed. Mr. Hunt’s
staff is pursuing these cases.

NASSS folks, please help me in congratulating my colleague for all of the
work he does in and out of the classroom bringing our students to the
cause of Social Justice and, hence, building on the dream of Martin
Luther King.

Sincerely,
Angela Hattery
Wake Forest