Controversy Over Presidential Candidate Barack Obama
On April 11, 2008, Tavis Smiley announced that he would resign in June 2008 as a commentator on the Tom Joyner Morning Show. He cited fatigue and a busy schedule in a personal call to Joyner. However, Joyner, referring to several commentaries in which Smiley was critical of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, indicated otherwise on his program, stating: "The real reason is that he can't take the hate he's been getting regarding the Barack issue—hate from the black people that he loves so much." Prior to the public controversy and being elected President, Obama had been on Smiley's PBS show six times.
In 2012, Smiley participated in a "Poverty Tour" with Princeton University professor Cornel West in promoting their book The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto. The stated aim of the tour was to highlight the plight of the impoverished population of the United States prior to the 2012 Presidential Election, whose candidates Smiley and West stated had ignored the plight of the poor.
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