Basil Watson calls it an honor to create a likeness of Smalls, the first Black person honored with a statue at the SC State House.

Robert Smalls​ escaped slavery in Charleston by commandeering a Confederate ship and became a top Union naval officer and South Carolina lawmaker.

Artist Basil Watson is creating the first statue of an African American, Civil War hero Robert Smalls, to be placed on South Carolina's Statehouse grounds.

Before he was a South Carolina lawmaker recognized as a champion of civil rights, Robert Smalls escaped slavery in Charleston by commandeering a Confederate ship. Eventually, he would become a top ...

A portrait of Robert Smalls from between 1870 and 1880. The unanimous passage of the bill to honor Smalls marks a significant shift in South Carolina’s recognition of its history.

Robert Smalls was born in Beaufort in 1839 to Lydia Polite, an enslaved woman. Smalls later purchased his childhood home, located at 511 Prince Street, from his former master.

Robert Smalls was born in 1839 in Beaufort, South Carolina, and died in 1915 in his hometown a free, but somewhat forgotten man tossed aside by a Southern society determined to keep Blacks inferior.

At 23-years-old, Robert Smalls won freedom for himself and his family. The Beaufort County man went from slavery to pilot during the Civil War before being elected to Congress.

Robert Smalls of South Carolina was an enslaved ship’s pilot for the Confederacy when he decided to seize a transport vessel and trade it for his freedom.

A man named Robert Smalls escaped slavery, along with his family and other slaves, by stealing a Confederate ship and was later elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

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 to a woman holding her son born into slavery.