For T. Dallas Smith, accepting the role as chairman of the Board of Directors for Westside Future Fund (WFF) was a full-circle moment. Smith grew up in Hunter Hills, off Simpson Road on Child’s Drive. Today, it’s known as Joseph E. Boone. His mother was an entrepreneur, running a daycare in his childhood home. His father, a former paratrooper in the Air Force’s 82nd Airborne division, worked at Lockheed Martin and drove a taxi for Simpson Road Cab Company.
“I was born and raised in the historic Westside, and, for me, it was paradise. I lived in that five-block radius for 14 years and everything I wanted was there,” said Smith. “We had grocery stores, movie theaters, and bowling alleys. For me the conversation isn’t about gentrification, but instead restoration.”
Smith attended EC Clement Elementary and Turner High School before moving to College Park. His family’s move to College Park was his parents searching for “better opportunity,” said Smith. The departure from his childhood home, however, left him with a void – longing for community, or a “gumbo of people” from his neighborhood on Atlanta’s Westside. After his family arrived in their new College Park neighborhood, Smith remembers their white neighbors putting up for sale signs – a personal experience of the “white flight” that was pervasive in Atlanta during the early 1970s.
This early experience of racial prejudice would inform so many moments of Smith’s personal and professional journey and fuel his motivation to become successful. He shares the story of working in a clothing store when he observed a well-dressed woman buying several expensive garments for her husband. He asked about her occupation and was excited when she shared that she worked in real estate, an industry Smith was also interested in pursuing as a career. When he shared his interest with the well-dressed, white woman she replied “You will never make it. You are too you and…
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