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TI: Before we get there, I'm just thinking, going back to Dr. Gray. So you lived with him during a period where you're adolescent, teenager, so those are, are sort of a period where many people sort of form their, their opinions, their ideas about life. How much influence did Dr. Gray have on you during these years?

CS: Oh, I never consciously thought of it, but from... I was with the Grays from age fourteen to twenty-four. And during that ten-year period, and he was president of a college for a number of years, and for a few years later, not, he did other things in Philadelphia. But I was always his administrative assistant in whatever he did. So I was aware of his thinking about things, political things, academic things, writing of letters. I could write a letter for his signature, and the person receiving it would not know that he had not written the letter. We had come that close in terms of our thinking. And at one point, I became a bit concerned that my personality was merging into his personality. That was one of those negative thoughts that I would have, and I had to break away for purposes of my own sanity. And as a consequence of that, I did break away. But I came to law school in Seattle. It was a break from Dr. Gray in Philadelphia, because I had been admitted to the University of Pennsylvania law school, which would have meant that I would have remained in Philadelphia under his, quote, "supervision," at age twenty-four. [Laughs] And I came here to Seattle where my mother lived. And nobody had ever heard of Dr. Gray in Seattle. The University of Washington, I was a totally independent person operating on my own without any influence, however good it may have been, and without any recognition of a relationship with a mentor as strong as Dr. Gray was. And so that was my emancipation from this wonderful mentoring relationship, which had become so much a part of my life that it was interfering in my ability to function as a whole person. And so this was the beginning of the emergence of Charles Z. Smith as a person in his own right, without mentors, without someone opening doors for him, without someone using influence, whether good or bad, on his behalf. I was on my own. And so this was the part of me that I am most proud of, was that break.

Now, in fairness to Dr. Gray, he continued to be part of my life. My children absolutely adored him. He was like a grandfather to them, and like a father to me. We have surrogate parents in different environments, and even now, he's dead, but his wife is still alive, and she is Grandma Hazel to my children. And she is like a surrogate mother to me. And his son, William H. Gray III, was recently president of the United Negro College Fund, like a brother to me. And I, quite frankly, am closer to my brother Bill Gray, than I am to my brothers, my Smith brothers, who live in Seattle. Because we grew up together, and we had more common interests in the academic field. But again, at the same time, it was a very positive part of my life. As I look back on it, I would have structured it differently. I would not have allowed one person to have such control over my life, to the extent of deciding for me what courses I would take, what schools I would attend, and that kind of thing. But in retrospect, it was all good. I, I have not suffered from it. I sometimes am amused at the fact that over a period of time, I had twenty different majors in undergraduate school. [Laughs]

TI: And that was all Dr. Gray saying, "Try this, try that"?

CS: Yeah.

TI: That's interesting.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.