The gift of griot

Mary Carter Smith's life of stories

by Johnette Rodriguez

Mary Carter Smith

At a time of year when people commemorate and celebrate the Civil Rights Movement and on a day when a new Administration is officially ushered in, activist, teacher, and storyteller Mary Carter Smith brings the wealth of her wisdom and life experience to the Rhode Island Black Storytellers third annual Funda Fest.

Co-founder (with Linda Goss) of the National Association of Black Storytellers in 1983, called "an American griot" by Alex Haley in 1976, installed in the Great Blacks in Wax Museum in Baltimore in 1989, and named Maryland's "Official Griot" in 1991, the almost 82-year-old Smith has had many other honors and awards heaped on her over the past 35 years, recognizing her teaching skills (31 years in the Baltimore school system), her writing and singing, her community service, and her storytelling. What has meant more to Smith than any award, however, has been the feedback from former students and friends that she gave them a lifetime love of words, of books, and of stories.

"My grandmother told me stories," Smith remembered, in a recent phone conversation from her home in Baltimore. "She had a great big Bible, and I would sit at her elbow and rub that soft spot right under her elbow and listen to her read.

"But she also told me stories about our family," Smith continued. "My grandfather in Alabama owned his own place and employed his relatives and would pay cash money to neighbors who brought cotton to sell. When the local landowner heard about it, he said, `There'll only be one of us here by tomorrow night.' So my grandfather had to leave Lowndes County and leave behind all he owned."

Smith moved many times as a child: from Alabama to Youngstown, Ohio; to West Virginia where she had three aunts whose husbands were coal miners, one of them a union organizer; and then to Baltimore when she was 16. When she was only five, her mother, who had moved to New York City with her new husband, was murdered by him, and Smith remembers saying at her funeral, "She's pretty, but she's so still."

Violent tragedy would strike again, as her only child, Ricardo Rogers Carter was stabbed to death at the age of 29. By this time, Smith's storytelling performances took her to many venues, including a pre-release center for women prisoners in Baltimore. There she came face to face with her son's murderer and forgave her, even helping her to find a job outside the prison.

"His death was heart-breaking, and it left me with a hole that could hold a lot of people," Smith reflected. "People ask me, `How could you forgive her? Why?' I tell them, `You never know what you can do till you are faced with it.'

"That's why I believe in a higher power that has given me compassion, strength, and a realization that all of us have gifts," she went on. "Mine are storytelling, song and writing. I plow them under when I perform. I own these gifts, and I work at them."

According to Smith, her days as a storyteller began at the age of six, when she would gather the neighborhood children around her to re-tell her grandmother's stories and make up some of her own. As an elementary school teacher, she would tell stories and recite poems at the end of the day if the students got all their work done. Usually that was a great motivator to them to keep on task. She also wore African clothes and brought in African food at a time when other teachers found that quite unusual.

Then, in 1971, she mortgaged her house and took a sabbatical from teaching to make her first trip to Africa, where "the red earth and the green water" filled her eyes and the courage and generosity of the people filled her heart. She came back with new stories about the daily lives of people there and a "peace story" about Victoria Falls. She has returned many times, with journeys to Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Kenya; in 1999, she performed at the First International Storytelling Festival in Ghana.

On a parallel track with Smith's storytelling career was her writing career -- she corresponded with and met Langston Hughes and had two of her poems included in his last anthology -- and her radio career, first on Howard University's WHUR and then, for 24 years, on WEAA (We Educate African Americans), a station at Morgan State University in Baltimore. The program, "Griot for the Young and Young at Heart," featured stories, songs, poems, and interviews. In 1993, the radio show spawned a "Growing Griots" club, with 50 storytellers between five and 13, who became storytellers-in-training with Smith.

She continues to perform her stories all around the country -- "I can stand for 12 hours without stopping," she quipped -- and to gear them to the vibes she feels from her audience. She might tell "Cindy Ellie" to a group of schoolchildren, putting it into their idiom -- "those big-ugly, big-foot gals" -- or she might tell "Funeral," anthologized under "humorous tales" in Linda and Clay Goss's collection Jump Up and Say because of its right-on portrayals of the cast of characters at the funeral of an upstanding female member of the church.

"I like making stories out of ordinary things," Smith confirmed. "That story about the funeral is received in different ways. African-American audiences just fall on the floor. I'm just saying what people are thinking."

Smith hopes that her stories will instill people with a sense that "everybody has good in them" and that "everybody is gifted -- you are as good as anyone, but you're not better.

"There is beauty in the world," she added. "And you can add beauty or add the opposite. What will you choose to do? You are important."

Mary Carter Smith has spent a lifetime proving just that.

The Funda Fest will be at the Rhode Island School of Design Auditorium on Saturday, January 20 at 8 p.m. Also performing will be: Baba Jamal Koram, who brings stories from Virginia and accompanies himself on drums; Teju Ologboni, who returns from Milwaukee with his signature "Drum Talk"; and Rochel Garner Coleman, who will perform a piece about the Negro Baseball Leagues and Cool Papa Bell, the fastest man to ever play baseball and the person credited with getting Jackie Robinson to switch from shortstop to second base. The fest also spotlights local storytellers Ramona Bass, Len Cabral, Abigail Jefferson, Melodie Thompson, and Valerie Tutson, who will participate in events on Friday evening, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday afternoon around the state. Call 454-6342.