Tavis Smiley

Tavis Smiley (born September 13, 1964) is an American talk show host and author.

Smiley was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, and grew up in Bunker Hill, Indiana.

On September 13, 1966, his second birthday, his mother married Emory Garnell Smiley, a non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Air Force.

A few years later Tavis learned the identity of his biological father, whom he identifies in his autobiography, What I Know For Sure: My Story of Growing Up in America, only as "T".

Smiley's family soon moved to Indiana when his stepfather was transferred to Grissom Air Force Base near Peru, Indiana.

On arriving in Indiana, the Smiley family took up residence in a three-bedroom mobile home in the small town of Bunker Hill, Indiana.

The Smileys had three more children and added four more after the murder of Joyce's sister.

Initially, four of her five children were cared for by their grandmother (known as "Big Mama"), but ill health impaired her ability, and Joyce and Emory took them in.

The trailer home sheltered thirteen, including Tavis and his seven brothers and two sisters and the three adults.

Smiley's mother was a deeply religious person, and the family attended the local New Bethel Tabernacle Church, part of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World.

The Smiley children were forbidden from listening to secular music at home or going to the movie theater, and could watch only television shows their parents felt were family-friendly.

When he was in seventh grade, New Bethel pastor Elder Rufus Mills accused Smiley and his siblings of "running wild, disobeying their teacher, disrespecting their teacher, disrespecting the sanctity of this building, and mocking the holy message being taught" during Sunday School.

According to Smiley's account of the incident, his Sunday School teacher became confused as she was answering questions about the Book of John, and other students "responded by giggling and acting a little unruly," although he and his sister Phyllis "remained quiet".

Garnell whipped Tavis and Phyllis with an extension cord, wounding the two children.

The next day at school, administrators found out about the children's injuries.

The local newspaper in Kokomo, Indiana, reported on the beating and the legal proceedings against Garnell; Tavis and Phyllis were sent to foster care temporarily.

Garnell told his children that the judge decided that he had "overreacted" and found he and Joyce were "concerned parents who were completely involved in [our] children's lives and well-being".

Smiley became interested in politics at age 13 after attending a fundraiser for U.S. Senator Birch Bayh.

At Maconaquah High School in Bunker Hill, Indiana, a school that Smiley described as "98 percent white," he was active in the student council and the debate team, even though his parents were "skeptical of all non-church extracurricular activities".

After attending Indiana University, he worked during the late 1980s as an aide to Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles.

In 1982 Smiley enrolled at Indiana University Bloomington (IU).

Because his parents refused to complete financial aid papers, Smiley entered the university with only $50 and a small suitcase.

Administrators let Smiley complete the paperwork to become a full-time student.

The summer after his first year, Smiley worked, attended summer classes, and lived off campus with Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball players, then being coached by Bob Knight.

Smiley was accepted into the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity during his second year, and became business manager of his dormitory, a member of the student senate, and director of minority affairs.

After his friend Denver Smith was killed by Indiana police officers who claimed to have acted in self-defense, Smiley helped lead protests to defend Smith, who he believed had been wrongfully killed.

Those protests led him to a work-study internship at the office of Bloomington Mayor Tomilea Allison, where he was paid $5 an hour.

Smiley wrote letters to local residents, researched for Mayor Allison, and helped write position papers on local issues.

In his autobiography, Smiley says that a deputy mayor caught him systematically adding extra hours to his time sheets, illegal behavior that could have seen him charged with a felony and expelled from college, but instead of pressing charges, Mayor Allison allowed him to work all of the hours for which he had already been paid, and did not tell other people what he had done.

During the first semester of his junior year, Smiley was under academic probation; he blamed his extracurricular activities for interfering with his studies.

When Smiley visited Los Angeles to attend a national student leaders' convention, the cousin of his roommate introduced Smiley to football star Jim Brown.

Brown introduced Smiley to fellow football player George Hughley, who worked for Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley and connected Smiley to Mayor Bradley's staff.

Every week after meeting Bradley's staff, Smiley wrote a letter to the mayor's office asking for an internship, and once flew to Los Angeles to appeal.

Smiley became a radio commentator in 1991 and, starting in 1996, he hosted the talk show BET Talk (later renamed BET Tonight with Tavis Smiley) on Black Entertainment Television (BET).

After Smiley sold an exclusive interview of Sara Jane Olson to ABC News in 2001, BET declined to renew his contract that year.

Smiley then began hosting The Tavis Smiley Show on National Public Radio (NPR) (2002–04) and hosted Tavis Smiley on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) on weekdays and The Tavis Smiley Show on Public Radio International (PRI) from 2004 until 2017.

Smiley had an employment dispute with PBS in December 2017 which resulted in his suing PBS for wrongful termination.

Smiley is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of SmileyAudioMedia, Inc. headquartered in Los Angeles.

Since June 2021 he has served as Chief Visionary Officer for his radio station, KBLA Talk 1580.

Smiley was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, the son of Joyce Marie Roberts.