Lowcountry hero Robert Smalls sails again -- in new children's book

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was on "The Today Show" last week breathlessly telling a great Lowcountry story.

Matt Lauer was wowed by the tale of a 23-year-old Beaufort slave named Robert Smalls. He commandeered a Rebel steamer in Charleston during the Civil War and sailed it past Fort Sumter to freedom in the waters off Hilton Head Island.

Kennedy was on the show because his "American Heroes" series of children's books now includes: "Robert Smalls: The Boat Thief." He fears it's the greatest story nobody knows.

The Robert Smalls story shook the world in 1862. It crushed the accepted wisdom on the abilities and mindset of South Carolina's hundreds of thousands of slaves.

Smalls, born into the Gullah culture of the Sea Islands, was a deckhand on a boat called the Planter. He studied the operation of the boat and the currents of Charleston Harbor. On a moonlit May night, while the white crew was at a party onshore, Smalls dressed as the captain, brought his family aboard and eased the armed vessel into the night. He sounded all the correct signals as he passed Confederate forts en route to the federal blockade offshore.

"One of the most daring and heroic adventures since the war commenced was undertaken and successfully accomplished by a party of negroes in Charleston," Harper's Weekly reported.

A New York Daily Tribune editorial asked: "What white man has made a bolder dash, or won a richer prize in the teeth of such perils during the war?"

Robert Smalls went on to become a state militia general, state legislator and a five-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives. His goal was to kill institutionalized discrimination. He pressed for the vote for women and the first public schools. He was an elegant speaker and wealthy entrepreneur. A Navy vessel, school and major thoroughfare in Beaufort bear his name. He's the subject of a number of previous books.

We should be glad that Kennedy is telling the story anew and that it is aimed at children who so desperately need examples of courage and the drive to overcome obstacles.

Woe be to us if Lowcountry children ever are surprised to hear the Robert Smalls story. He's one of our own who dared to grab for an equitable, inclusive shot at the American dream.