Pubdate: 16 Jan 2001
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA)
Copyright: 2001 Richmond Newspapers Inc.
Contact:  P.O. Box 85333, Richmond, VA 23293
Fax: (804) 775-8072
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Website: http://www.timesdispatch.com/
Author: Michael Paul Williams, Times-Dispatch Staff Writer

SMITH OFFERS ADVICE WHILE HAILING ICON

Three weeks removed from her seven-year prison nightmare, Kemba Smith
told an audience observing the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday
that freedom is not free.

"We must remember, freedom is not a gift, but an achievement," said
Smith, the former Glen Allen debutante and Hermitage High School
graduate who spoke at yesterday's Living the Dream Mass Meeting at the
Ashe Center.

The celebration featured videotaped remarks by Coretta Scott King,
widow of the slain civil rights leader. She thanked Gov. Jim Gilmore
for his role in making King's day a distinct Virginia holiday no
longer shared with Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J.
"Stonewall" Jackson.

Also yesterday, a candlelit cake was rolled to the front of the
darkened arena KING as people waved fluorescent red, green, or-ange
and blue wands and serenaded King with Stevie Wonder's "Happy
Birthday." The song was a rallying cry for proponents who succeeded in
getting the national King holiday signed into law in 1983.

But it was clear that most of the audience of 5,000 - the largest
crowd to attend this event in years - came to hear Smith.

Smith's 24 1/2-year prison sentence on a drug conspiracy conviction was
commuted three days before Christmas by President Clinton.

Her case, which garnered national publicity, had been cited as an
example of the unduly harsh treatment doled out to nonviolent
first-time offenders under federal mandatory sentences.

Supporters also argued that Smith had fallen under the influence of an
abusive boyfriend, since slain, whom she had met on the campus of
Hampton University.

Smith, 29, urged young people in the audience yesterday to be "freedom
fighters in the new millennium."

"Be careful who you choose to be around you," she said. "Make sure
your circle of friends will enhance your ability to be the best you
can be and reach your goals."

Since her release from the women's federal penitentiary in Danbury,
Conn., Smith has vowed to counsel youths on the pitfalls of the drug
culture and to speak out against what she maintains is the overzealous
incarceration of other nonviolent drug offenders.

She thanked her parents, Gus and Odessa Smith, who traveled the
country galvanizing support for her release.

"The big picture isn't me, though," she said, recalling the nonviolent
offenders she left behind in prison. "I stand here today merely as a
symbol of hope and justice."

Freedom remains elusive in a nation where black votes remain uncounted
from the November election and black men are targeted, brutalized or
placed on death row for crimes they did not commit, she said.

Smith challenged the young people in the audience to "become aware of
what is negatively impacting our community. . . .

"You are capable of making this country a more just and peaceful
nation," said Smith

Mayor Timothy M. Kaine punctuated Smith's remarks by giving her a
proclamation from the city citing the "insight she can provide to the
application of justice."
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