An excerpt from the Associated Press -
South Carolina to build first monument to an African American. Meet Robert Smalls
Robert Smalls made an audacious escape from enslavement to become a pilot and a South Carolina statesman.
By the Associated Press
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| A bust of Robert Smalls, who will soon be the first African American individual with a statue at the South Carolina Statehouse, I s displayed Reconstruction Era National Historic Park, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in Beaufort, S.C. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins) |
BEAUFORT, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina is preparing to put up its first individual statue for an African American on its Statehouse lawn, honoring a man who put on Confederate clothes in order to steal a slaveholder’s ship and sail his family and a dozen others to freedom during the Civil War.
But Robert Smalls isn’t just being honored for his audacious escape. He spent a decade in the U.S. House, helped rewrite South Carolina’s constitution to allow Black men equality after the Civil War and then put up a valiant but doomed fight when racists returned to power and eliminated nearly all of the gains Smalls fought for.
Rep. Jermaine Johnson can’t wait to bring his children to the Statehouse to finally see someone who is Black like them being honored.
