April 30, 2026
I am still on the ballot to serve as TNDP executive committeeman in TN district 15 (White, Putnam, Cumberland, Van Buren, Jackson, and Smith counties), and if elected will return and serve. I was asked to compose a bio for a list of Democratic candidates, and below is what I came up with. If you know me and trust in me, and either live in one of those counties or have friends who do, please share this. Thanks.
Troy Smith is a native of White County and received his undergraduate degree at TTU (and graduate degrees from the University of Illinois). He has been a history professor at Tech since 2011, and teaches (among other things) indigenous studies, environmental history, minority studies, and the history of Tennessee and Appalachia. He is a multiple national award-winning novelist, and authors a political column in the Sparta Expositor -the column was suspended by the editor after Smith received numerous death threats from MAGA extremists, but has recently been reinstated. He has years of experience as a labor organizer, political activist, and civil rights advocate. At Tech he has received awards for his teaching, for service, and for being an outstanding diversity advocate. He has years of experience in leadership, and has served as: faculty senate president, state president of the American Association of University Professors, on the statewide planning and legislative action committees of the United Campus Workers union as well as the TTU rep for said union, national president of the Western Fictioneers writing organization, on the board of the North American School for Organizing, on the state board of AIM (American Indian Movement)-Indian Territory, on the national board of The Second Rainbow Coalition, adviser to the TTU College Democrats since 2011, second vice-chair of the White County Democratic Party, and while in grad school at the University of Illinois served as the history and East Asian Studies departments liaison to the Graduate Employees Organization, where he helped coordinate a successful grad student workers' strike in 2009. In 2020 he was the district caucus chair for Bernie Sanders. From 2023 to 2026 he served as District 15's TNDP committeeman and seeks re-election to that position to continue his work there. He has developed a reputation for courage, integrity, fairness, and -in the words of one state party leader -"calm and measured leadership." As someone with a rural, working class background -the first person in the history of his family to graduate high school, and 20 years as a janitorial worker (and foreman) -he has the ability to speak to the regular working people of this district as well as to academic audiences in a language that resonates with both. In his youth he served two years of full-time, fully culturally immersed socio-religious work (in French) with Haitian immigrants in South Florida and New York City, often in extremely dangerous circumstances. He has cultivated relationships with both the tribal governments and the overall community in both the OK and NC Cherokee reservations, and coordinated (and delivered) food drives for the NC Cherokee reservation after the hurricanes. He always stands up -fearlessly, strategically, and with both passion and compassion -for the oppressed, for the worker, and for what he believes is right.
You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE
A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE
Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com
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