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Charles Z. Smith (Photo courtesy of Legacy Washington)

In a public service career that's approaching the 55-year mark, Charles Zellender Smith has in fact been a role model to thousands - as a corruption-fighting prosecutor, thoughtful judge, law school professor and dean; television and radio commentator; human rights activist; champion of minorities and women in the legal system; big brother to youth at risk; national church leader; internationally known voice for tolerance; patron of the arts; self-described "flag-waving patriot"; military officer; devoted husband, proud father and doting grandfather to children whose Jewish and Japanese genes broaden the roots of the Smith family tree.

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Charles Z. Smith stands in front of an exhibit panel about him at a Legacy Washington event. (Photo courtesy Benjamin Helle)

Smith's life has been punctuated with satisfying work, good fortune and firsts. In 1955, he became the first person of color to clerk for a Washington Supreme Court justice; in 1965, he became the first African-American to serve as a Seattle municipal court judge; and in 1966, when Gov. Dan Evans named him to the King County Superior Court bench, he broke yet another color barrier. In 1973 he joined the faculty of the University of Washington Law School as a full professor and associate dean - once again a trailblazer. Then in 1988, Gov. Booth Gardner, a Democrat, chose Smith from six candidates to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Commentators noted that Smith had been a Republican when he was with the King County Prosecutor's Office in the 1950s. In fact, you had to join the party if you wanted to work for Prosecutor Charles O. Carroll, Mr. Republican in King County. In any case, none of that mattered to Gardner. He wanted to name a minority justice, and in Smith he also saw "a bright and collegial judge with a strong social conscience." He was also impressed that Smith had been a star in the Justice Department under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.