Crossing Bridges and Advancing Forward

Woman of Impact

by Tom Barry

May 2, 2008

Jane E. Smith keeps a bust of Mary McLeod Bethune on her desk at Spelman College. A picture of Bethune – founder of Bethune- Cookman University, confidante to Eleanor Roosevelt and
groundbreaker on feminist and racial fronts – is on her desk at home. Born to former slaves, Bethune (1875-1955) made her substantial mark in an age in which female black leaders were all but unknown. You don't need the history books to tell you that hers was a long struggle in the face of cold, harsh winds.

"I quote her more in my presentations than anyone else," says Smith, executive director of Spelman's Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement. "Mary McLeod Bethune crossed bridges and worked
with others outside of her race to advance women's issues. She was extraordinarily smart and determined, and she was careful about the partnerships and collaborations [she pursued]."

In civic, corporate and educational arenas over four decades, Smith's own life work has drawn from Bethune's. Born into segregation, the 61-year-old Atlanta native has forged countless partnerships across gender and racial lines, carrying the torch to expand opportunities for women and blacks. "Jane has left footprints for many young women – and young men – to follow," says Tommy Dortch, former president of 100 Black Men of America and a noted Atlanta entrepreneur. "She's well-respected in every corner of this nation. When people want to get things done, her name rolls off their tongues. Jane's all about less talk and more action." A sociologist educated at Spelman, Emory (master's) and Harvard (doctorate in social policy analysis), Smith in the 1980s served as managing director of INROADS/Atlanta and INROADS/Detroit, overseeing corporate placements for college interns.

By the early 1990s, Smith was director of development for the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. From 1994 to 1998, she directed The Atlanta Project, the formidably ambitious plan conceived by former president Jimmy Carter to transform blighted neighborhoods in the city through grassroots initiatives. Smith went on to serve as president/CEO of the National Council of Negro Women – an organization founded by Bethune – and then as CEO of Business and Professional Woman/USA before returning to Spelman in 2004.

It was a double homecoming, both a return to her alma mater and to the college where, as assistant to the Spelman president, she began her career in 1975.

Today, at an age when many of her contemporaries are eyeing retirement, Smith says she's just hitting her stride, even as her life has come full circle. In standard Smith fashion, she delivers the words with enthusiasm and authority, punctuated by an infectious laugh. "I say I'm just now reaching my peak because I've worked for years with leaders who were clear about who they were and the work they were doing. ...," she says. "When I was a child, I had these images that my best work would come when I was a senior, so I've been waiting on it." Smith's portfolio at Spelman centers on training students to become leaders in the corporate and nonprofit worlds; preparing them for – and placing them in – community service roles; staging conferences and other special events tied to those missions; and conducting research in such areas as the advancement of black women in the workplace. Smith likes to talk about progress across the generations, and her favorite Bethune quote is telling.

"I leave you a responsibility to our young people," the civil rights activist once said. "The world around us really belongs to youth, for youth will take over its future management. Our children must never lose their zeal for building a better world. They must not be discouraged from aspiring toward greatness. "

Despite the vast progress of recent decades, Smith says racism and sexism are still very real problems in society.

"We've come an extraordinarily long way since I was born in 1946," she says. "Growing up, I got on the back of the bus, and I drank out of the colored-only water fountains. I remember walking up the back steps of the Fox Theatre to get to the colored seating. I watched my mother having to put a plastic cap on her head before she could try on hats at Rich's. "Those of us who were part of that old world can't reflect on the continuin racism and sexism without first saying how far we've come," Smith says. "But we still have a long way to go regarding human rights." Fostering cooperation among different groups doesn't just happen, Smith says. "Bridges are built through dialogue, partnerships and collaborations that are very deliberate. You have to bring people to the water – they won't [go] there by themselves.

"You hear these antimulticulturalism people say that we're tearing America apart," she says. "But in fact we're strengthening individual groups by bringing us all together. We're all part of the United States of America." Over her career, Smith has followed not only in the footsteps of Bethune but also in those of her ancestors. Bazoline Usher, a greataunt who adopted Smith's mother as a child, was coordinator of Negro schools in Atlanta in the 1940s and 1950s. "She was the first African-American – male or female – to have an office at City Hall, where the public school system was housed at the time," Smith says.

Smith's late mother was an elementary school teacher and one of the first African-Americans to teach in integrated schools here. Her father was a dentist until age 80, and from him, she inherited a love of jazz. "I listen to John Coltrane, and it's like Saturday or Sunday morning in my childhood," says Smith, who has two grown children. Although not in the front lines of the civil rights movement, Dr. Harvey B. and Lavada Johnson Smith strongly supported Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s campaigns. Their daughter grew up in a household in which the fight for equality was no abstract notion but part of the fabric of everyday life. "What Dr. King believed in, we believed in," says Smith, a member of the first black Brownie troop in Atlanta. "We always walked the line and did exactly what Dr. King instructed the community to do, which was not true of all African-American families. There was a lot of division back then, but we never raised a single question."

Indeed, when asked what she's proudest of in her career, Smith says it's her stint at the King Center, where she worked with Coretta Scott King and Christine Ferris (Dr. King's sister) on fundraising and program development that centered on local and national activities marking the 25th anniversary of King's assassination in 1968. "Mrs. King was all about building bridges," Smith says. "From her I learned how you can walk that triple line with clarity – be a strong American, a strong African-American and a strong woman, without any tension whatsoever."

Dortch – a longtime aide to then U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn and an entrepreneur who has launched five companies – says Smith doesn't seek the limelight.

"She's not someone who wants to be seen and be heard," he says. "Jane thinks through the issues and the challenges before she speaks. And she believes in pushing others to get the job done." Ann Cramer, director of corporate citizenship for IBM North America, has known Smith for many years.

"Jane brings an extraordinary intellect to the table and also wisdom, and those are two different things," Cramer says. "She's very clear on what the issues are, but she comes at them with such grace that she elicits trust in others." Cramer has witnessed Smith's work in Atlanta through three of Smith's incarnations.

"At INROADS, she put African-American students in positions where they could be leaders," Cramer says. "With The Atlanta Project, she literally pulled something together out of thin air, making it real and relevant while crossing all the geographic and racial lines in the city. Now she's back at Spelman, putting all that experience to work."

Smith and Dortch are co-writing a book on leadership that's expected to be released this fall. While the focus will be on African-American leaders over time, Dortch says, the principles are universal.

"Our passion is to get our communities to stop depending on everyone else, to stop making excuses and stop criticizing and just do what we have to do," Dortch says. "And that is to roll up our sleeves, go to work and change things."

Effective leaders pass the baton to others, says Dortch, noting that King developed such leaders as Andrew Young, Joseph Lowery, John Lewis, Hosea Williams and Jesse Jackson.

"[Motivational speaker] Myles Monroe says the most valuable real estate in the world is in graveyards, where people went to their graves with knowledge and experience that they didn't pass on," Dortch says.