South Carolina will build the first monument to an African American. Meet Robert Smalls

BEAUFORT, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina is preparing to erect its first individual statue of an African American on the Statehouse lawn, honoring a man who donned Confederate garb to steal a slave owner’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 equality for black men after the Civil War, and then fought a valiant but doomed fight when racists returned to power and eliminated nearly all achievements that 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.

“The man has done so many good things, it is a travesty that he has not been honored until now. Heck, it’s also a travesty that there aren’t any big Hollywood movies about his life,” said Johnson, a Democrat from a district just a few miles from the Statehouse.

The idea of ​​a statue for Smalls has been in the works for years. But there has always been silent opposition preventing a bill from being heard. That changed in 2024, when the proposal passed unanimously in the state House and Senate, supported by Republican Rep. Brandon Cox of Goose Creek.

“South Carolina is a great state. We have a lot of history, good and bad. This is our good story,” Cox said.

The bill created a special committee that has until Jan. 15 to come up with a design, a location on the Statehouse lawn and the money to pay for the memorial they choose.

But supporters face a challenging question: What best honors Smalls?

If it’s just a statue, it might as well honor the steel-nerved ship pilot who waited for the entire white crew to depart and then imitated hand signals and whistles to get through Confederate checkpoints while hoping the Confederate soldiers wouldn’t notice a Black man under the hat in the pale moonlight in May 1862?

Or would a more fitting tribute to Smalls recognize the statesman who served in the South Carolina House and Senate and the U.S. House after the Civil War? Smalls bought his master’s house in Beaufort, in part with money earned for turning over the Confederate ship to Union forces, and then allowed the man’s poor wife to live there when she became a widow.

Or is the elder Smalls, who fought for education for all and to maintain the gains made by African Americans during the Civil War, the man most worth publicly honoring? Smalls would see a new constitution in 1895 end the voting rights of African Americans. He was fired from his position as a federal customs collector in 1913 when then-President Woodrow Wilson purged large numbers of black men from government jobs.

Or would it be better to combine them all somehow? That’s how Republican Rep. Chip Campsen, himself an occasional boat pilot, sees it honoring one of his favorite South Carolinians.

“The best way to sum up Robert Smalls’ life is that it was a fight for freedom as a slave, as a pilot and as a statesman,” Campsen said.

Then there is the issue of location. Although South Carolina has a multi-panel monument that honors the struggle of African Americans from their journey on slave ships to today, it does not honor an individual black man or woman among the two dozen monuments scattered around the Statehouse.

At least six different monuments honor people like Dr. J. Marion Sims, who some consider the father of modern gynecology but who supported his research by operating without anesthesia on enslaved women and girls. There are several honored Confederates who fought to protect slavery in the state that started the Civil War, and they hang a marble copy of the Articles of Secession in the lobby between the House and Senate chambers.

The dubious list includes “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, a governor and U.S. senator who bragged about how he led groups of whites who killed black men trying to vote during the 1876 election that led to the end of Reconstruction, the return of all whites. government and the collapse of everything Smalls worked for. None of this is on Tillman’s statue plaque.

Some supporters have suggested that Smalls’ statue could stand closer and be taller and more prominent than Tillman’s, to give Smalls a triumph that has been about 130 years in the making.

Once the design and location are determined, organizers hope raising the money will be easier with a concept in mind.

“We have to get the narrative right,” said Republican Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey. “It will tell a story. I think it’s important that we say what’s the right way to honor him and to honor South Carolina. I think it’s really cool.”

Robert Smalls was born in 1839 in Beaufort and died in 1915 in his hometown, a free but somewhat forgotten man who lived a life unimaginable for a woman whose son was born into slavery. Supporters now have a chance to ensure he never fades into obscurity.

“Robert Smalls writes a new future for this county that right now no one can see is happening,” said Chris Barr, Chief of Interpretation at the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park in Beaufort, while standing next to a bust of Smalls near his burial in his hometown.

Driving a Confederate boat to freedom is what stands out most about that remarkable life, Barr said.

“If you’re an enslaved person working on one of those boats around Charleston Harbor, like Robert Smalls, you’ve got the tools, you’ve got the talent, you’ve got the boat and you know how to steer it,” Barr said, “And you can literally see freedom floating in the form of the United States Navy just a few miles offshore. All you need is an opportunity.”