On June 27, Bree Newsome of Charlotte, North Carolina, took down the Confederate battle flag at the South Carolina state capitol in a bold act of nonviolent civil resistance.
Newsome, a 30-year-old black woman who is an artist as well as an organizer, expertly climbed up the 30-foot flagpole, ignoring police who ordered her to stop. After removing the flag and descending the pole, she was arrested with white ally Jimmy Tyson, who provided ground support for her action. A spokeswoman for the authorities said they were charged with defacing monuments on state Capitol grounds, a misdemeanor that carries a fine of up to $5,000 and a prison term of up to three years, or both.
“It’s time for a new chapter where we are sincere about dismantling white supremacy and building toward true racial justice and equality,” Newsome said. Her act of defiance was in response to the murders of nine parishioners at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, gunned down in a racist act of terror on June 17, 2015. The accused shooter can be seen brandishing the Confederate flag in photos taken before the murders, a flag widely seen as a symbol of slavery, segregation and white supremacy.
Yet, even though South Carolina was a key member of the Confederacy and a bastion of white supremacist culture, it also has been the site of some of the more daring actions by African-Americans in the pursuit of freedom.
It was enslaved South Carolina seaman Robert Smalls who handed the Confederacy one of its most stunning setbacks. Smalls was stationed aboard Confederate warship the Planter in Charleston’s harbor. On a night in 1862, when the white officers were ashore, Smalls and other enslaved crew members spirited their families aboard the ship. Disguised as the captain, Smalls flashed the correct signals to Fort Sumter and was allowed to sail out of the harbor. He delivered the ship to Union forces; they made him the vessel’s new captain.
Also in 1862, the Union army sent renowned slave liberator Harriet Tubman to Port Royal, South Carolina, where they established a beachhead to wage guerilla-style warfare against the Confederacy.
Tubman masterminded a raid along the Combahee River, inland from Port Royal, which had been mined by Southern forces. She obtained the assistance of Col. James Montgomery, who was versed in guerilla operations. On June 2, 1863, with 300 black troops on three gunboats, they moved up the river, disabling mines along the way. The result of their raid was described in the Boston Commonwealth newspaper:
“Col. Montgomery and his gallant band of 300 black soldiers, under the guidance of a black woman, dashed into the enemy’s country, struck a bold and effective blow, destroying millions of dollars worth of commissary stores, cotton and lordly dwellings, and striking terror to the heart of rebeldom, brought off near 800 slaves and thousands of dollars worth of property, without losing a man or receiving a scratch. It was a glorious consummation.”
More than 100 years before these events, South Carolina’s slave-owning system was shaken to its very foundation when a detailed plan for a vast slave rebellion was betrayed to the authorities.
The abortive uprising was to be led by Denmark Vesey, a former slave who purchased his freedom with lottery winnings. It was said Vesey expected up to 9,000 slaves to participate. After the plot was exposed, 130 people were arrested. Between June and August of 1822, Vesey and 37 others were executed.
Vesey’s legacy reaches down to us today, as he and his son were the founders of the Emanuel AME Church where the Charleston shooter went on his rampage. Despite that fusillade of race hatred, the centuries-old struggle for genuine freedom and equality pursued by African-Americans in South Carolina and throughout the United States likely will continue until it succeeds. I believe that many, if not most, of the people of Maine will support that struggle.
John Curtis is a retired U.S. Postal Service letter carrier who lives in Surry.