Paul Smith

Paul Smith (born September 20, 1935) is an American Presbyterian minister, mediator and civil rights activist known for creating multi-racial churches in Buffalo, St. Louis, Atlanta and Brooklyn, NY. Smith has been active in the civil rights movement since the 1950s. He has been an administrator, faculty member and trustee at seminaries and universities in St. Louis, Atlanta and New York City. He has served as a mediator and multicultural consultant to corporations and the government and has been active in organizations like the Urban League.

Early life and education Smith was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana. He was one of five children in a middle-class family. Smith went to integrated local schools and describes South Bend in the 1930-40s as racially moderate and multi-cultural. In 1952, Smith went south to attend Talladega College in Alabama. He earned an A.B. degree in Psychology and Religion in 1957.

In 1960, he married Frances Pitts, whom he had met at Talladega. Smith received his first seminary degree at Hartford Theological Seminary in that same year, and in 1978, he earned a Doctor of Ministry in Sociology and Religion at Eden Theological Seminary in Missouri. His dissertation focused on relations between black and Jewish college students.

Pastorates and civil rights activism After graduating from college in 1957, Smith introduced Andrew Young and Martin Luther King Jr. to each other and hosted the two speakers at a Talladega event sponsored by Alpha Phi Alpha, the black men's fraternity of which all three were members. Smith became a follower of both men and counts Young as a significant mentor in his life. Smith thereafter developed an inter-racial outreach program to other churches in St. Louis. He also taught at Atlanta's Columbia Seminary. the founder of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, the country's first explicitly inter-racial and inter-cultural church. Smith has followed Dr. Thurman in seeking to engender intentionally diverse congregations. Being a black Presbyterian pastor in an all-white church made Smith "unique among the more than 4,000 congregations of the Presbyterian Church in the US" at the time. He became the 14th and first black pastor of a predominantly white church in existence since 1823. His friend, then-Mayor of Atlanta Andrew Young, gave the sermon at the installation service attended by more than 700 people. In addition to being explicitly multi-cultural and multi-racial, First Church under Smith's leadership also became more politically active and welcomed the gay and lesbian community. Dinkins gave a tribute at Smith's retirement service on June 25, 2006. The book describes the end-of-life support he extended to tennis and civil rights champion Arthur Ashe, Dr. John Edson of Long Island College Hospital and Andrew Young's wife, Jean Childs Young, among others. In his memoir, Ashe wrote of his time with Smith.

Smith has been a trustee of academic and healthcare institutions including Long Island College Hospital, where he was chair of the Ethics Committee.