Meet the Black Men Who Changed Lincoln’s Mind About Equal Rights is an article in the January/February 2022 edition of Smithsonian Magazine that helps illustrate how complicated Abraham Lincoln’s views on race and the equality of Black Americans were…and how those attitudes evolved with the influence of people like Charleston’s own Robert Smalls.
The only way Robert Smalls could ensure that his family would stay together was to escape. Smithsonian Magazine
Don’t know that much about Smalls? He was also the focus of a Smithsonian article in June 2017 : “Darkness still blanketed the city of Charleston in the early hours of May 13, 1862, as a light breeze carried the briny scent of marshes across its quiet harbor. Only the occasional ringing of a ship’s bell competed with the sounds of waves lapping against the wooden wharf where a Confederate sidewheel steamer named the Planter was moored. The wharf stood a few miles from Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the Civil War had been fired.” For more CLICK HERE
Smalls’ story was also told by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on the PBS series “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross” . To see more online CLICK HERE
