South Carolina to build state's first individual monument honoring an African American
South Carolina is preparing to put up its first individual statue for an African American on its Statehouse lawn, honoring Robert Smalls.
BEAUFORT, S.C. — 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.
“The man has done so many great things, it’s just a travesty he has not been honored until now. Heck, it’s also a travesty there isn’t some big Hollywood movie out there about his life,” said Johnson, a Democrat from a district just a few miles from the Statehouse.
The idea for a statue to Smalls has been percolating for years. But there was always quiet opposition preventing a bill from getting a hearing. That changed in 2024 as the proposal made it unanimously through the state House and Senate on the back of Republican Rep. Brandon Cox of Goose Creek.
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