Jenna Smith

Jenna Smith is planning to re-launch The LGBT History Project. Her vision is to create an organization dedicated to creating access to queer history education through virtual media. Its purpose is to share the rich and diverse history of the LGBTQ+ community in a widely accessible format. It also aims to bring attention to the BIPOC who have contributed to the queer liberation movement but had their stories erased. 

Smith is a Robertson Scholar at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At Duke, she is pursuing impact work as the Programming Director of Kidz Vote, the Head of the Advocacy Team on the Duke Justice Project, and a Research Assistant at the Wilson Center for Science and Justice. She has pursued her passion for historical preservation as an intern at the Delta Center for Culture and Learning and Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area. In this role, she was tasked with designing and launching a Civil Rights Heritage Archive to preserve the stories of the Mississippi Delta. She will continue to engage in historical preservation as an independent student researcher, focusing on rectifying methods of erasure levied against Black women in history.  

Smith is also a 2019 HERLead Fellow, a Rising Voices Club Mentor, a Point Foundation Scholar, an Eva Clayton Fellow, and is ranked among the Top 20 Best Speakers in the nation as a first-year competitor at the AMCA Undergraduate Moot Court Competition.

”As a visionary leader, I hope to dismantle systems of ignorance through education and storytelling.”