#css planter

[*This year marks the 100th anniversary since Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the “Father of Black History” founded Negro History Week in February 1926. Fifty years after that, President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month. In 1986, Congress passed a law designating February as Black History Month across the U.S.] Robert Smalls was the first Black man elected to U.S. Congress during…

159 years ago today, Robert Smalls, born into slavery, commandeered the Confederate ship CSS Planter, freeing himself, his crew, and their families. Sailing into Union waters, his example helped convince Abraham Lincoln to allow black soldiers to enlist in the Union army. Smalls served as a member of the South Carolina state legislature from 1868 to 1875, and as a member of Congress on and off from 1875 to 1887, even AFTER Reconstruction was ended in 1877. He helped create the country’s first free and compulsory public school, and founded the Republican Party of South Carolina (at the time, the Republicans were the northern liberal party; the ideologies didn’t switch until the 1930s - 1960s), which probably pisses off all the white supremacists down there. He died a free man in 1915, aged 75.