27th Annual Robert Smalls Lecture
Keynote: Dr. Millicent Brown
Talk: “What exactly have we learned from our equity struggles?”
Date/Time: Tuesday, October 21, 2025 • 6:30 p.m.
Location: Lumpkin Auditorium, 8th floor, Close-Hipp building (USC Columbia)
Host: Department of African American Studies
The Department of African American Studies is pleased to present civil rights activist and educator Dr. Millicent Brown as keynote speaker for the 27th Annual Robert Smalls Lecture. Dr. Brown will deliver a talk titled “What exactly have we learned from our equity struggles?”
About the speaker
Dr. Millicent Brown is an adjunct professor in the African American Studies Program at the College of Charleston, where she teaches the special topics course Understanding School Desegregation: Legal, Educational and Psychological. A lifelong community advocate, Dr. Brown is a prominent voice for economic, social and educational equity in communities of color across the South and beyond.
She co-founded and directs the oral history initiative Somebody Had to Do It, documenting the “first children,” like herself, who desegregated previously all-white schools. Dr. Brown has held faculty and museum roles and serves as a consultant to museums, historic sites and social justice programs throughout South Carolina and the nation. Her work examines the modern civil rights movement and the intersections of race, gender, caste and class in contemporary society.
First inaugurated in 1997, this lecture series has grown from the Department of African American Studies' strong sense of identification with South Carolina history and culture, both past and present. We're proud to present the lecture to the university and the local community.
Robert Smalls: Daring Hero
Robert Smalls (1839-1915) was originally known as a daring hero during the Civil War. In 1862, he delivered the Planter, a transport steamer, to Union soldiers and by April 1863, he was pilot of the ironclad USS Keokuk. On December 1, 1863, after an act of bravery under fire, Smalls became the first black captain of a vessel in the service of the United States. After the war, he became a Major-General in the SC militia and a state legislator.
Life After the War
Viewed as one of the most powerful black men in the state of South Carolina, he served in the 44th, 45th, 47th, and 49th Congress (1875-1879; 1881-1883; 1885-1887) representing Beaufort, South Carolina. For nearly 20 years he served as U. S. Collector of Customs in Beaufort, S.C., where he lived and owned the house in which he had previously been a slave.
Smalls' contributions to political, economic and education reform in South Carolina were so significant that in 1976, during the celebration of the Nation’s Bicentennial, Governor Edwards issued a proclamation setting aside February 22, 1976 as Robert Smalls Day in the entire state of South Carolina. On September 15, 2007, the U.S. Army commissioned the first vessel in honor of an African American, the USAV Maj. General Robert Smalls, a 314-foot long, 5,412-ton transport vessel.