Daniel R. Smith Sr.

1932 - 2022

SMITH

DANIEL R. SMITH SR. (Age 90)

Daniel R. "Dan" Smith, Sr., likely the last living person born to a Black man enslaved during the Civil War, died October 19, 2022, at Sibley Hospital in Washington, DC. He is proof that slavery is not distant history. His father, Abram (A.B.) Smith, was 70 years old when Dan was born in Winsted, Conn., on March 11, 1932; his mother, Clara Wheeler Smith, was 23. Dan's grandparents, William and Augusta Smith, were in bondage in the Massies Mill district of Nelson County, Va.



Dan was the second youngest of his siblings Marion, Abram (Abe), Jenny, Henrietta (Hennie), and Margaret. Dan was six years old when his father, a janitor, was hit by a car and died, leaving Dan's mother penniless. Despite acute poverty, the family stayed together, and the children each achieved success in their lives. Dan's life was depicted in two Washington Post articles: in 2020 by Sydney Trent (which spawned many articles and TV/radio interviews) and in an obituary on October 21, 2022 by Harrison Smith: https://wapo.st/3Smkr8m.



These stories highlighted Dan's remarkable life and his strength of character, courage, fortitude, resilience, and dignity – traits he attributed to his father, who told him, "We survived the ships. You are strong, and don't ever forget it!" Dan rose up again and again, starting as a Black child in the largely white town of Winsted, working with a veterinarian in high school, serving as a medic in the US Army in Korea; diving into a hurricane-swollen river to rescue a man; being elected student council president at the largely white Springfield College; becoming a social worker; participating in Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington; and attending veterinary school at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He left school to direct a federal anti-poverty program in Lowndes County, AL, during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, nearly losing his life to KKK night riders; was on one of the Selma-to-Montgomery marches; and moved to Washington to develop Neighborhood Health Centers nationwide.



Dan always felt that his major accomplishment was starting, in 1972, a new $60-million program for the National Institutes of Health, the Area Health Education Centers (AHEC), to train primary care physicians to work in underserved areas. Despite his success in implementing it, he faced acute discrimination and possible demotion. Dan fought back, and with pro bono help from a major law firm, Wilmer Cutler Pickering (now WilmerHale), he kept the position and was even promoted. Afterwards, he helped develop emergency medical services in Lebanon, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia, and he attended Bishop Desmond Tutu's installation as the first Black Archbishop of South Africa. After retiring in 1994, Dan helped launch the Korean War Memorial and became Head Usher at the Washington National Cathedral, escorting Presidents Bush (both of them), Clinton, and Obama. In 2006 Dan married Loretta Neumann at the Cathedral, and they have lived in DC's Takoma neighborhood.



Dan is survived by his wife Loretta and children from his first marriage with Sandra Hawkins (Bjork): Daniel R. (Rob) Smith, Jr. of New York; daughter April (Smith) Motaung, her husband Andrew and their daughter, Tselane Motaung of Columbia, MD.



A Requiem Mass for Dan will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, October 29, 2022, at Trinity Episcopal Church, 7005 Piney Branch Rd. NW, Washington, DC. It will be preceded by a public viewing in the church from 10:15 to 10:45 a.m. Interment at Congressional Cemetery will be private.



Because of Dan's love of animals, the family requests that donations in his name be made to one of two nonprofit organizations: Humane Rescue Alliance (in Dan's neighborhood, it serves as the District's public animal shelter) at www.humanerescuealliance.org or Fidos for Freedom (provides trained hearing dogs, service dogs, combat-related PTSD dogs, and therapy dogs in the Baltimore-Washington area) at www.fidosforfreedom.org



Dan's memoir, Son of a Slave: A Black Man's Journey in White America, will be at Politics and Prose bookstore in early November. Preorders are available online at www.politics-prose.com/book/9781624294273.