[2] After the Civil Rights Movement, Smiley continued to employ nonviolence and worked for several organizations promoting peace in South American countries.
When World War II broke out and the time came for Smiley to enlist in armed services, he refused to participate.
These strokes greatly affected his memory and speech for 15 years, until one day he woke up and seemed to be completely back to his normal self and even went on to give 103 major lectures.
Smiley first used his theory of nonviolence in the late 1940s when he attempted to spur integration of tearooms of department stores in the Los Angeles area.
Smiley was also charged with appealing to Southern white people, and accessed group meetings of organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the WCC.
[9] After the Supreme Court's ruling in Browder v. Gayle Smiley rode with Martin Luther King Jr. and Reverend Ralph D. Abernathy on the first day that bus segregation ended in Montgomery.
[13] Speaking about the King Center, Smiley stressed "nonviolence is the most effective way of achieving change because in the process it does not rip countries apart; it builds, it does not destroy."
[14] In a statement issued by Dean Hunsell, a board member of Los Angeles chapter of the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolence, it was announced that Smiley died of natural causes likely connected to complications from a previous stroke.