Toni Smith, New York state director at the Drug Policy Alliance, found her principles at the principal’s office when she was just a kid. Her advocacy started in middle school, standing up for her classmates against their teacher’s tiny tyranny. The model student faced serious trouble for the first time. But hailing from a family of activists, Smith, 44, knew it was about time.
Despite basketball’s gendered glass ceiling, she blossomed into a talented baller during her youth. The WNBA did not yet exist and boys often monopolized the schoolyard courts until a fight freed them up during recess. Smith later played on the Beacon School’s inaugural women’s team. She ultimately found herself playing Division III basketball for Manhattanville College while studying sociology.
Midway through Smith’s NCAA career, the Sept. 11 terror attacks took place. By her senior year in 2003, the lifelong New Yorker questioned patriotism’s role in American society and sports as the nation invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and plunged into an endless war in the Middle East. So she turned her back to the national anthem in protest.
Throughout the season, Smith continued her defiance with little resistance until Manhattanville faced a service academy. Her opponents caught wind of her protest and so did an Associated Press reporter. A crowd (or more accurately, a mob) packed the stands decked with stars-and-stripes and jeered with a hostility unprecedented in the DIII ranks. The story exploded into national headlines.
“For the rest of the games of the season, we had press at every single game — local, national [and] international press at every game,” said Smith. “If that protest had happened at a different time, it may not have ever been noticed or gotten picked up. It was a part of a very particular political and cultural movement that took off.”
Smith went pro after college, not in ball but towards advocacy. She started with nonprofit work like grant writing before organizing for the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU). Her story resurfaced nationally more than a decade later when NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick also protested the national anthem by famously taking a knee against racist police brutality. She provided a key voice in the conversation, which she calls an honor. In 2022, Manhattanville College welcomed her back as a commencement speaker and granted her an honorary doctorate.
In the same year, she moved jobs. During her time organizing for NYCLU, Smith felt at home tackling social issues like education, street policing and LGBTQ concerns. But they all connected back to drug use somehow. She frequently worked in parallel with the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), an organization dedicated to preventing overdoses and combating drug criminalization. When a spot for a New York State director opened up, Smith applied and was appointed to the role.
“There are some issues where we don’t necessarily have a strong opinion about,” said Smith. “But drugs and sports are two issues where most people have some very strong opinions that [are] formed by their own personal experiences, politics or religion. It’s very personal. And both are often used by very powerful leaders in this country to advance agendas.”
Today, Smith plays a key role in shaping drug policy in New York as the state raised more than $3 billion in opioid settlement money from suing big pharma companies. So her fight continues, decades after the final buzzer. Smith says turning her back on the anthem goes beyond just the now-vindicated 2000s anti-war movement.
“How I’ve talked about my protest over the years has changed as our conversations about anti-oppression protests have changed,” said Smith. “In 2001, it was post-9/11 anti-war and foreign imperialism. In 2012-2014, you have the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2016, you have Colin Kaepernick and the resurgence of sports and protest and a different conversation about ‘shut up and dribble.’
“All of these different ways that the dominant culture has said ‘get back in your place, democracy is not for you.’ And the process was really my coming of age way to find my place to resist that.”