CLINT SMITH
Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of the narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism, the Stowe Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2021. He is also the author of the poetry collection Counting Descent, which won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. His forthcoming poetry collection, Above Ground, will be published March 28, 2023.
While having recently stepped down as the Legal Clinic’s executive director to spend more time with her family, Patty remains involved in housing justice advocacy in the nation’s capital. She has been engaged in a number of initiatives that promote justice for unhoused and low-income community members, both in DC and at the federal level, serving on the boards of directors of Community Spring, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice and The Center for Social Housing and Public Investment. She was a founding member of the DC Access to Justice Commission, a co-founder and long-time steering committee member of the DC Fair Budget Coalition, and a member of the governing or advisory boards of the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project, the National Center for Housing and Child Welfare, and the DC Fiscal Policy Institute. Patty also is helping build a new generation of justice advocates as an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University, where she co-teaches a course on “Homelessness, Poverty and Legal Advocacy.”
The importance of Patty’s work has been recognized both nationally and locally, with awards from the National Homelessness Law Center, the DC Bar, the Legal Aid Society of DC, the DC Bar Foundation, the People for Fairness Coalition and the Gray Panthers of Metro Washington. In addition, Patty holds honorary degrees from Georgetown University Law Center and Kings College (PA).