Before deploying to Afghanistan, Sen. Smith races to finish ambitious agenda

By Diane Rey
For Maryland Reporter

State Sen. William “Will” C. Smith Jr. fondly recalls talking politics with his dad. But he didn’t always appreciate those conversations as a teenager.

Back then, he was often more interested in borrowing $20 to take a girl to the movies, he said. But his father, a cab and, later, a limo driver, wanted him to sit down and discuss the latest item he’d clipped from the newspaper, often about rising African Americans politicians like Doug Wilder, first black governor of Virginia.

His father would tack those news clips on his bulletin board, and they grew to be 15 years’ deep.

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