page_title: Harry Clay Smith
section_title: Early life and education
hierarchical_section_title: Harry Clay Smith / Early life and education
caption_attribution_description: English: First page of sheet music for HC Smith's "Be True Bright Eyes"
context_page_description: Harry C. Smith was an African American newspaper editor and politician. Smith was one of the strongest advocates for civil rights in the pre World War II era and was responsible for some of the strictest anti-lynching legislation in the country at the time.
context_section_description: Smith was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia on January 28, 1863. His parents John and Sarah Smith moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 1865 after the dramatic conclusion to the Civil War. In Cleveland Smith was able to attend one of America's first public schools, Central High School founded in 1846. The school has graduated many prominent leaders of industry and culture like John D. Rockefeller and Langston Hughes. The schools were integrated at that time, and this informed his belief in equality of races and opposition to segregation. As a student, he learned to play the cornet and was constantly employed in orchestras and brass bands, allowing him to help support his family. In the summers of 1881 and 1882 he played the cornet for an orchestra in Lakewood, New York on Chautauqua Lake. In 1882, also while still in high school, he worked as a correspondent for papers in Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Springfield, and during his last year and a half in school he wrote for a weekly paper, the Cleveland Sun. After finishing school he continued to work as a musician for about a year and a half, and directed a number of Cleveland-based colored orchestras, brass bands, and vocal groups including the Amphion male quartet and the Freeman and Boston's orchestra, the First Methodist Episcopal Orchestra, the Central High School Orchestra, and the Excelsior Reed Band of Cleveland. He wrote a number of popular songs as well. He was also involved in several athletic organizations, and was often the only black person involved in the organizations.
caption: First page of sheet music for HC Smith's "Be True Bright Eyes"[3]
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