William H. Smith is the founding executive director of the National Center for Race Amity based at Wheelock College in Boston, Ma. His prior higher education assignment was as executive director of the Center for Diversity in the Communication Industries at Emerson College in Boston, Ma. Smith's initial college career began in integrating division one football in the old Confederate South at Wake Forest College. He was profiled in the Sports Illustrated cover story (November 7, 2005) as one of the pioneers who changed the face of college football. He left Wake Forest to work as a community organizer in the Civil Rights Movement and was drafted into the US Army. He graduated with honors from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst after serving as a medic in Vietnam, where he was awarded two Bronze Star stars and the Combat Medic Badge. He also earned his doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Smith founded and served as president and general manager of WNDS TV, a full power UHF station in Derry, New Hampshire (presently MY TV) and later formed the film and multimedia company, ComTel Productions, Inc. which he headed for fourteen years.

Smith has addressed issues of race and diversity in his work with civic, philanthropic and religious organizations including the Phelps Stokes Fund where he serves as a trustee and Senior Fellow www.psfdc.org, the Regional Baha"i Council for the Northeast States on which he served for ten years, the Media Advisor to the National Association for Black Veterans (NABVETS), and the Board of Directors of the Africa Media Image Project. www.afroimagetv.org. In 2000 he organized the historic Joint Congressional Resolution establishing a National Day of Honor to recognize the service of African American and other minority soldiers in World War II. In conjunction with that event, he wrote and produced an award winning documentary film, "The Invisible Soldiers: Unheard Voices," which aired on PBS. www.hollywood.com/tv/The_Invisible_Soldiers_Unheard_Voices/5181480 Smith coordinated the national initiatives "Neighborhood Conversations on Race: A Talk Worth Having" and "Campus Conversations on Race"(CCOR) and the handbooks which support those programs. He founded the Campus Conversations on Race College Network whose sixteen member colleges www.campusconversationsonrace.org and slated to grow to two hundred and fifty under the focused support of the National Center for Race Amity.

Smith has received awards from numerous organizations including the International Academy of Communications Arts and Sciences, the National Association for Black Veterans, Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, Screen Actors Guild Diversity in Production Award, National Association of Government Communicators, and the National Education Association. He was presented with "The Key to the City of Greenville, S.C." his home town in 2007. Dr. Smith was selected as the Balfour Scholar by the Balfour Foundation, Bank America Trustee. In 2009 and 2010 Dr. Smith served as a keynote speaker and workshop leader at the annual Leadership Conference for Afro and Indigenous Colombian Fulbright Scholars held in Bogota, Colombia.