Richard Thomas "Chip" Smith Jr.

Richard Thomas Smith Jr.

"Chip"

ROCKY MOUNT - Richard Thomas Smith Jr., (Chip Smith), age 75, passed away Friday March 2, 2018, surrounded by family at Duke University Hospital. Born in Harrisburg, PA on August 13, 1942, he was the son of the late Dr. Richard T. Smith Sr. and Dorothy Long Smith.

Chip grew up in Narberth, PA, and he attended Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, PA. He graduated with a B.S. from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., Class of 1964. He took a year off to provide volunteer activities in Laos with the International Voluntary Services before entering University of Pennsylvania Medical School. He left medical school without completion in protest of a profit-oriented health care system. He was also involved in the Student Movement against the Vietnam War, which laid the basis for his later activism. In 1994, he earned a Ph.D. in Economics at Temple University.

Chip lived and worked in Philadelphia, PA, for many years, first as a lab technician at the defunct Philadelphia General Hospital, and later as a turret lathe operator at Philadelphia Gear, where he served as a shop steward for the International Association of Machinists Union. He also taught economics for a short period. Chip was a founding member of the Freedom Road Socialist organization, and also co-founded the Philadelphia Public School Notebook newspaper, prior to moving with his wife to Fayetteville, NC in 2000 when she relocated her medical practice there.

In Fayetteville, Chip worked with the Quaker House and joined with others to protest the US intervention in Iraq, as well as working with folks for a moratorium on the death penalty. After moving to Rocky Mount in 2008, he helped put together the Racial Justice Group here, and was also a member of the Rocky Mount Sierra Club, PFLAG and the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.

Chip considered himself a Buddhist and practiced meditation, Tai Chi, and an avid bridge player. He also held a third-degree black belt in Shotokan Karate. Chip considered his greatest achievement to be authoring The Cost of Privilege; Taking On the System of White Supremacy and Racism, first published in 2007. He had just finished a new preface to the second edition in 2017.

He left behind a partner of 42 years, Dr. Kim Eng Koo, a retired neurosurgeon, and two sons, Nathan J. Smith and Nicholas J. Smith. Nathan resides with his fiance;, Hallie F. Goodman, in Melbourne, Australia. Nicholas and his wife, Nichole Rice Smith, live in Port Matilda, PA, along with Chip's four grandchildren: Alexander T. Smith, Dominic C. Smith, Isabel L. Smith and Logan J. Smith.

A Memorial Service is planned for this Saturday, March 10, 2018 at H.D. Pope Funeral Home, 325 Nash Street, Rocky Mount, from 4-6 pm. All friends are invited to say a few words on how Chip has touched their lives at the memorial.

Tribute can be paid to him by contributions to a Chip Smith Racial Justice Memorial Fund with the Rocky Mount Branch of Southern Bank. Further information can be obtained at http://www.hdpopefuneralhome.com.

As published in the Rocky Mount Telegram