TEDxJacksonville: Introducing the Speakers

MICHAEL T. SMITH
Black Murder is Normal

Servant to the poor. Butler to the great. Counselor. Philosopher. Life-long mate. Michael T. Smith is a High School dropout (and later GED recipient) that has devoted his life to advancing the cause of Justice in his generation and beyond. He has received multiple awards and citations for his work in addressing systemic racism, generational poverty, and violence.

Michael is senior pastor at The Church of Jacksonville. Michael and his wife, Connie, have two children; Michael has been voted “#1 Dad” for 10 consecutive years by the “Bug” and the “Deuce,” an honor he holds most dear.

1.Why did you apply to give a Talk at TEDxJacksonville?

Ideas worth sharing are most fertile when they are seeded into the minds of people of passion and influence. I can think of no more concentrated assembly of passionate, influential thinkers in our city than TEDxJax.

2.What is your favorite TED Talk?

How To Start A Movement
http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement

3.What does (un)knowing mean to you?

It means that the answers to our world’s toughest questions are not always found in the places we are supposed to look for them, the places we are taught to focus. It means that we may have to take up some tracks of thinking that are long-travelled to lay some new track leading to solutions rather than cycles.

4.What do you wish the world (or the city of Jacksonville) could (un)know?

That the lingering effects of systemic racism are solvable, fixable in our time. In this generation.