On May 13, 1862, the enslaved African American Robert Smalls commandeered a Confederate warship, the Planter, from Charleston harbor and piloted the vessel to cheering seamen of the Union blockade, thus securing his place in the annals of Civil War heroics. Slave, pilot, businessman, statesman, U.S. congressman, Smalls played many roles en route to becoming an American icon, but none of his accomplishments was a solo effort. Billingsley offers the first biography of Smalls to assess the influence of his families—black and white, past and present—on his life and enduring legend. -University of South Carolina Press, 2007

            Andrew Billingsley is a professor of sociology and African American studies and senior scholar in residence at the Institute for Families in Society at the University of South Carolina. He served as a professor and chair of the Department of Family Studies and a professor of sociology and African American studies at the University of Maryland, as president of Morgan State University, and as provost at Howard University.

Thursday, January 17^th, 2008

Noon—1 p.m.

SC State Library Administration Building

Room 309, 1430 Senate Street

Columbia, SC 29201

This free lunchtime program is presented by the South Carolina Center for the Book (www.sccenterforthebook.org), the South Carolina affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book. The SC Center for the Book is a cooperative project of the SC State Library, the University of South Carolina School of Library and Information Science, and The Humanities Council SC.