Quotes by Tavis Smiley

About Tavis Smiley:

Tavis Smiley is an American talk show host, author, liberal political commentator, entrepreneur, advocate and philanthropist. Smiley was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, and grew up in Bunker Hill, Indiana. After attending Indiana University, he worked during the late 1980s as an aide to Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles. Smiley became a radio commentator in 1991, and starting in 1996, he hosted the talk show BET Talk (later renamed BET Tonight) on BET. After Smiley sold an exclusive interview of Sara Jane Olson to ABC News in 2001, BET declined to renew Smiley's contract that year. Smiley then began hosting The Tavis Smiley Show on NPR (2002–04) and currently hosts Tavis Smiley on PBS on the weekdays and "The Tavis Smiley Show" from PRI. From 2010 to 2013, Smiley and Cornel West joined forces to host their own radio talk show, Smiley & West. They were featured together interviewing musician Bill Withers in the 2009 documentary film Still Bill. He is the new host of "Tavis Talks" on BlogTalkRadio's Tavis Smiley Network.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I don't think that left to its own devices, capitalism moves along smoothly and everyone gets treated fairly in the process. Capitalism is like a child: if you want the child to grow up free and productive, somebody's got to look over the shoulder of...

Tavis Smiley

I thought our community should have a deep dialogue to make black America better. I believe if we make black America better, we make all of America better.

Tavis Smiley

Jamestown changed the world in many ways, but perhaps it shaped our nation most profoundly the day Africans arrived. I can't think of a more relevant place to talk about the issues facing our community today than the place where African culture becam...

Tavis Smiley

We believe that when you make Black America better - you make all of America better.

Tavis Smiley

This administration and these folk who run Washington are no more interested in our welfare and our well being than the man on the moon. And we have got to start taking our destiny into our hands.

Tavis Smiley

My role on television is one of helping people reexamine the assumptions that they hold. I regard Dr. King. You would never hear me get up and speak without in some way, shape or form, referencing, Dr. King.

Tavis Smiley

In some states, not even 50 percent of black boys finish high school.

Tavis Smiley

We - again, the, the, the, the bastardization and the demonization over the last few years of teachers and of unions and of collective bargaining, that is not the answer.

Tavis Smiley

That is still the case in this country for too many students, the soft bigotry of low expectations. If you don't expect them to learn, if you don't expect them to succeed - then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Tavis Smiley

To be clear, the gap between the have gots and the have nots is widening. In this most multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic America ever, that concerns me.

Tavis Smiley

This country is going to implode, or put another way, it's going to get crushed under the weight of poverty. You can't have one percent of the people who own and control more wealth than the other 90 percent of the population.

Tavis Smiley

This whole notion of a post racial America was nonsense from the very beginning. It was a bad idea, a bad notion, a bad formulation when it was first raised.

Tavis Smiley

But what all these responses have in common is that they point to the decisive power of information and stories [...]

Tavis Smiley

The choices we make about the lives we live determine the kinds of legacies we leave.

Tavis Smiley

...I found myself surrounded by people--starting with my mom, grandparents, uncles, and aunts, and leading to a string of wonderful role models and mentors--who kept pushing me to see more than what was directly in front of me, to see the boundless p...

Tavis Smiley

Life’s impermanence, I realized, is what makes every single day so precious. It’s what shapes our time here. It’s what makes it so important that not a single moment be wasted.

Tavis Smiley

Fighting for your convictions is important. But finding peace is paramount.

Tavis Smiley

History is replete with examples of moments in time when we talk about deficit reduction and try to advance on it around the world, that is, where it leads to job losses, not job creation.

Tavis Smiley

The storm came. Lives were washed away. Ancient pains resurfaced. Now it is time for a sea of change.

Tavis Smiley

This is not a skill problem, this is a will problem. Does America have the will to make education a priority? We know the things that work. Why don't we scale up those things that do work.

Tavis Smiley

Author Bio

  • NameTavis Smiley
  • DescriptionTalk show host, author, entrepreneur, advocate, philanthropist
  • BornSeptember 13, 1964
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionRadio Host; Television Presenter; Journalist