[2] In 1966 Smith was drafted into the Marine Corps where he spent two years in Vietnam, being honorably discharged with a Purple Heart in 1968 due to injury.
[2][6] He was also severely psychologically and spiritually impacted from experiences there, resulting in Smith's divorce and increasing posttraumatic stress disorder through 18 years of post-combat struggle before finding his calling as an artist.
[7] Thematically, Charles' work confronts what he sees as the erasure of Black history by recreating scenes and icons of those narratives in a formula of concrete and mixed media of his invention.
[3] Smith is one of three living artists whose work is part of the John Michael Kohler Art Center's permanent collection.
[3] The Kohler Foundation purchased 448 of Smith's work from his Aurora, Illinois in 2000, of which 200 remained in their Art Center's permanent collection.
[3] Despite this first property falling to disrepair and precarious community support, the remaining sculptures still paint a narrative that draws tourists.
[6][13] In 2002 Smith was traveling to New Orleans to help his ailing mother when he stopped to rest and found a grave stone of Peter Hammond's "Unnamed Slave Boy."
[4][2][3][10] The Hammond site's house references Egyptian architecture and ancient tomb and is boldly painted black and white.
[14][15] The exhibition featured twenty-nine new figurative sculptural works created specifically for a gallery context[16] as well as photographic murals depicting the African-American History Museum + Black Veterans’ Archive.
[17][18] Some of his sculptures portrayed figures like Phyllis Wheatley, Gordon Parks, Diana Ross, Iceberg Slim, Paul Robeson, and Mother Consuella York.
Smith heavily uses metaphor, symbolism, news stories, historical narratives and his own experiences in the formal choices and spatial relationships of his sculptures to create his dense art environments.
The sculpture acted as a perimeter protecting to his environment and went on to include imagery from the Civil Rights Movement, all with three-quarters to life sized figures.
He's advocated for other Vietnam veterans, worked with the Congressional Black Caucus on Agent Orange and on Jesse Jackson's PUSH coalition.