Edward Smith, American University professor and co-founder of the Heights School, dies

Edward Smith, the first tenured African American professor at American University who became a Catholic in 1975, was buried following a Funeral Mass April 17 at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle.

Smith, 80, died March 11, but his ardent wish was to be buried from the cathedral, so his family waited a month to make it happen.

Smith, a third generation Washingtonian, left behind a considerable legacy of accomplishments in the nation’s capital.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser issued a proclamation for April 17, the funeral date, as a “day of remembrance” for Smith in the city where he was born and lived his entire life.

Smith “loved history so much that he vowed to read one book a week for the rest of his life,” Bowser said in the proclamation. “Professor Smith’s leadership and commitment were surpassed only by his love for our city and his passion to give back to the community.”

Even before he joined the Catholic Church, Smith and a priest-mentor, Father Malcolm Kennedy, co-founded the Heights School in Washington, a Catholic school for boys that is administered by Opus Dei and has since relocated to Potomac, Maryland. Smith said when Father Kennedy confirmed him, he felt ever since like a “true Catholic.”

Smith taught at the Heights — and, almost simultaneously, at American University. Smith never left home to go to college; the family was too poor to pay for university studies. That did not stop his ascent in academia. But Smith took leave from the university for two years to work in the White House as a speechwriter during the administration of President Jimmy Carter.

Smith taught history at American University for 45 years, and was the founder of the university’s Civil War Institute. He later became an art history lecturer and study tour leader for the Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Society, the National Park Service and the Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

In 1997, in collaboration with two Catholic study centers, Smith co-founded the Youth Leadership Foundation. which since that time has supported character development for more than 4,000 students, hosting after-school mentoring and summer enrichment and high school leadership programs.

In a file photo, American University Professor Edward Smith speaks to people participating in its Civil War Institute, which he founded. Smith died on March 11. (Photo courtesy of American University by Jeff Watts)

Russell Williams, a student of Smith’s at American University who later became a professor there, remembered spotting Smith waiting for a bus and carrying a stack of books under one arm. “What are you reading?” Williams remembered asking him. One of the books was the third in Robert Caro’s then-trilogy biography of former President Lyndon Johnson. “Master of the Senate” was so engaging, Williams said, he had to find the previous two volumes in the series. “There went my weekend,” he chuckled. At their next encounter, Williams said he told Smith, “Remind me never to ask you what you’re reading again.”

Smith’s efforts had an unusually wide geographic reach – given that he never learned to drive. Kendra L. Carey, a former student who considers Smith a second father, recalls having to get Smith to the Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg so he could be the keynote speaker at its sesquicentennial. But they veered off course and were going to be two hours late.

“This was before cells phones and GPS!” Carey said at the cathedral Mass. “We used maps and asked directions. In this state of madness, Professor Smith remained calm, collected and reiterated that Gettysburg is not going anywhere and they will wait.” And the audience did.

The “second father” appellation was deeply rooted. “That relationship was so deep,” Carey said, “that when my father became terminally ill, he called Professor Smith with a request, ‘Kendra is young and still in need of guidance and will need a father figure when I am gone.’ The torch of fatherhood was passed from my father to Professor Smith. He took that request to heart and honored that for the rest of his life.”

Carey also recalled uprooting some sweet-pea hydrangea from her garden to put in a vase to take with her to visit Smith in the hospital, as his stays there were becoming longer and more frequent. They watched Serena Williams’ last professional tennis match together in the hospital while enjoying some contraband Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups she had snuck with her into the hospital.

Smith’s son Chris, himself a university professor, revealed this personal glimpse into his father’s life: “When he was a senior in high school in a tennis tournament at Turkey Thicket, he played a skinny kid from Richmond who wore glasses.

“This skinny kid, whose name is Arthur Ashe, carved my dad up in a quick match. Yet years later at a social function with my older brother Todd, Ashe and my dad met again,” Chris Smith said. “Ashe being the gracious man that he was, told my brother how competitive the match was, and my dad really appreciated that touch of hyperbole. Ashe’s humility solidified his status in my dad’s mind. For the record, the score of the match was 0-6, 0-6.”

Over the years, Professor Smith’s essays appeared in many publications, including The Yale Review, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Lincoln Review and The Washington Times.

Smith was predeceased by his wife Mary Magdalene Jefferson Smith, his mother Rachel Willis and his son Justin Smith. He is survived by his children Todd, Dawn, Christopher, Austin and Chad Smith and his grandson Coby. After his Funeral Mass at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, he was buried at Washington National Cemetery in Hillcrest Heights, Maryland, where his late wife and mother were buried.