Everything about Willis Smith totally explained
Willis Smith (
19 December 1887 -
26 June 1953) was a
Democratic U.S. senator from the state of
North Carolina between
1950 and
1953. Born in Virginia, he moved to North Carolina before age 2. After graduating from Trinity College (now the undergraduate liberal arts college of
Duke University) in 1910 and
Duke University Law School in 1912, he became a practicing attorney -- but interrupted his work to serve in the United States Army during World War I.
Smith served in the North Carolina House of Representatives from 1928 to 1932, and was briefly the speaker of that body in 1931. He also served as a U.S. observer at the
Nuremberg Trials in 1946, as chairman of the American delegation to the
Inter-Parliamentary Union in Bern, Switzerland in 1952, as chairman of the
Duke University board of trustees, and as president of the
American Bar Association.
In the Democratic primary of 1950, Smith defeated incumbent Sen.
Frank Porter Graham for the nomination. Graham had been appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the death of
J. Melville Broughton and had served only a little over a year at the time of his defeat. In the campaign, Graham, who was well known for his antiracist sympathies, was supported by President
Harry Truman and the state's liberal Democratic faction, while Smith employed some dubious racial overtones and was aided by a young strategist named
Jesse Helms.
Each year, Duke University Law School awards the "Willis Smith Award" to the graduating law student with the highest academic average in the class.
Smith's service in the Senate was brief and unremarkable. He died suddenly in 1953 and was interred at the Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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