Let’s take the time now to look back at the life of Allah: the man history has yet to remember. Allah was born Clarence Smith on Friday, February 22, 1928 in Danville, Virginia. He was the fifth son of Louis and Mary Smith. His sister Bernice and younger brother Harry A (A Allah) were born after him to complete the family of seven; six boys and one girl. As a baby his mother nicknamed him ‘Put’ and this is what he was called throughout his early childhood years. Allah’s early childhood experience was characterized by the Jim Crow laws of segregation in the south which meant that blacks were separated from whites in housing, schools, theaters, etc….
Allah and his brothers and sisters never minded not being with “whitey” as they referred to them as. They enjoyed life amongst their own people and never were interested in going where they weren’t welcomed. The Smith family lived at 834 Valley Street. It was a six block walk into the heart of town where the movie theaters were located at. The blacks had a choice of going to the “colored” theater or sitting in the balcony of the whites theater. Allah and his siblings carried memories of looking down at “whitey” from he balcony of the theater and remarking how silly and trivial they were. Summers were spent by the Smith children in St. Petersburg, Florida with relatives. There, they would swim in a river behind a slaughter house where cows were prepared for market. There was a landing in the middle of the river at the base of a train trestle where they would swim to in order to catch candy thrown by “whitey” from the windows of passing by trains. Allah was a very strong swimmer. His brothers would joke that Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan) didn’t have anything on him. One day they were out swimming. Allah and one of his friends had reached the landing at the trestle when they spotted A Allah going down in the water. Allah dove back into the river, reached his brother quickly and pulled him to safety. He had saved his brother’s life.
His father, Louis, was a tall man, he wasn’t very built, kind of lanky but he was a helluva man, strong in sense of convictions. An event that must have heavily influenced Allah’s attitude towards life in general and whites in particular occurred in at their house in Danville while he was still a young boy. On this occasion, Allah witnessed his father fight a burly whiteman in front of their house. His father ended up knocking this man over the banister of the house an they had to beat the man’s son and daughter who tried to come to their father’s aid. All this had taken place because the whiteman had cursed in front of Allah’s mother! Perhaps more so than anything else, these were the kind of experiences that developed and made Allah, the man. He had instilled in him a “down home” sense of values, convictions, street wisdom, and awareness.