Early Life and Education
Chad Smith was born in Pontiac, Michigan, where his father had gone for work. He grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. As a boy, Smith achieved the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts in Nashville.
He grew up with stories of his Cherokee ancestors. He is the great-grandson of Redbird Smith, a Cherokee Nation Senator and a traditionalist who founded the Nighthawk Keetoowah Society, a religious, cultural, and political organization dedicated to reviving the Cherokee way of life. He fought the allotment policy, under which the United States government took more than 7,000,000 acres (28,000 km²) of land from the Cherokee. Rachel Quinton, Chad Smith’s grandmother, was a lifelong advocate for the Cherokee people and the treasurer for the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians.
Smith earned a Bachelors of Arts in Education from the University of Georgia in 1973, a Masters of Business Administration degree in Public Administration from the University of Wisconsin in 1975, and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Tulsa law school in 1980.
Read more about this topic: Chad "Corntassel" Smith
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