The S.C. Senate unanimously passed a bill Wednesday to create an 11-member commission to install a statue on the Statehouse grounds to honor Robert Smalls, the Civil War hero and Black legislator.
A final Senate reading on the bill, H. 5042, is expected Thursday. It then would go to Gov. Henry McMaster to be signed.
If signed promptly, the new law could come just in time for the state’s first observance of Robert Smalls Day in South Carolina on May 13, which the S.C. Legislature enacted last spring. A statue honoring Smalls would be the first monument for an individual Black person at the state’s capitol complex.
On May 13, 1862, Smalls, an enslaved crewman, commandeered the Planter, a Confederate steamship in Charleston, and gave it to the Union Navy. Other enslaved crewmen and their families were also on the vessel as Smalls skillfully sailed the boat past Confederate batteries.
Smalls’ actions thrust him into the annals of history, politics and business. He was elected to both houses of the S.C. General Assembly before he served five terms in the U.S. Congress.
Earlier this week, current Senate President Sen. Thomas C. Alexander, R-Oconee, was optimistic about the bill. “I am supportive of it and hopefully we will see it move forward,” he told the Charleston City Paper. “The full Senate will have that ability … to consider it and, hopefully, it will be adopted.”
S.C. Rep. Brandon Cox, R-Berkeley, introduced the bill in the S.C. House where it received a unanimous vote in March. Cox then said he hoped the Senate approved the bill before the General Assembly adjourns at 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 9.
If signed into law, the bill would create a Robert Smalls Monument Commission. The commission would be required to raise money for the monument and report a proposed design and location for it by Jan. 15, 2025.
“It is a wonderful honor,” said Charleston businessman Michael Boulware Moore, Small’s great-great-grandson. “[Robert Smalls] would be the first African American to be presented on the grounds of the Statehouse.
“There are not a lot of other things that could get a unanimous vote in our very polarized world today, and the fact that it was unanimously passed is very meaningful,” said Moore, a current Democratic candidate for Congress in the Charleston area.
Studying South Carolina history
Cox, a freshman legislator, said he researched the state’s history for “people … who have contributed significantly to [South Carolina] and the person that came to the top of that list was Robert Smalls.”
Cox said the bill’s unanimous support in the House “says a lot about the state of South Carolina and where we are today. It shows that we are in the 21st century and that is a positive thing for our state.”
An African American History Monument was completed in 2001 at the Statehouse as a part of a compromise the year before to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse dome. Recognizable Black history trail blazers are featured on the monument’s carved panels, but they are not named individually.
All of the stand-alone monuments, markers and statues memorializing specific South Carolinians on the 22-acre Statehouse grounds honor White men.
Rep. J.A. Moore, D-Charleston, said Smalls deserved a similar tribute.
“Congressman Robert Smalls is a national treasure, and his story of perseverance and his principle of character is the truest definition of America,” he said. “It is a well overdue acknowledgment on the Statehouse grounds for such an American hero.”
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