Smith was born April 13, 1924[1] in Central, South Carolina,[2] the son of Nazarene ministers.
"[7] Smith began his teaching career at the Eastern Nazarene College (ENC) in 1949 and left in 1954 to take a position at East Texas State University.
[8] During his time at ENC, he was the first director of Quincy School Department-sponsored College Courses, Inc., after which fellow Eastern Nazarene history professor Charles W. Akers transformed it into Quincy Junior College and served as its first full-time director.
[7] A prolific author who published in nearly every historical journal, Smith's best-known and most-praised work is his 1957 book Revivalism and Social Reform,[11] formed from his dissertation from Harvard,[5] which received the Brewer prize from the American Society of Church History.
[7] Smith retired to Burke, Virginia but died at age 72 in West Palm Beach, Florida on January 20, 1997, after several strokes.