William Roy Smith (1876–1938) was an American academic historian.
1897, A.M. 1898), and went on to complete a Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1902, as a student of William Archibald Dunning.
He joined the faculty at Bryn Mawr College in 1902, and became professor of history in 1914.
[1] Smith's essay "Negro Suffrage in the South", published in Studies in Southern History and Politics (1914), argued that the disenfranchisement of Black voters had been necessary in the late 19th century, but looked forward to a time when "a steadily increasing number of negroes, who are qualified by intelligence and character, will be readmitted to the voting ranks".
Du Bois to list him in Black Reconstruction (1935) among "authors [that] believe the Negro to be sub-human and congenitally unfitted for citizenship and the suffrage".