Jim Clyburn

He gave me the explanation, and that's how I know all of this.

And six months later, he passed away.

So he was about to leave this earth, with my not ever knowing that part of his history.

But what I learned from him is that there's a certain amount of education that you've got to get.

outside of the books.

And so I try hard now to really soak up stuff that I hear from people, soak up stuff that I may see on the evening news or read in a newspaper and try to make it relevant.

For instance, I never would have recognized what was happening on January 6th that I'm not

Soak up some of the stuff my dad told me.

Because he was the first one to tell me about Robert Smalls.

Yeah.

They weren't teaching that in the schools when I was growing up.

Right.

I started learning all that stuff on my own.

And as one would find in the first eight, when I talk about these people, I think that I'm not even saying introduction to the book.

Among the eight.

Robert Smalls was head and shoulders above all the rest of them.

Who could be born into slavery as he was?

Who would have been able to escape from slavery the way he did?

And not just alone.

He brought his own family with him and his friends.