Little-known stories from Black history, like that of Robert Smalls’ sail to freedom, fascinate Joel Christian Gill, an associate professor of illustration at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Donning the captain’s hat as a disguise, Smalls picked up his family and the families of other crew members and sailed out of Confederate waters and into freedom. It was the middle of the Civil War, and Smalls, one of the Planter’s eight enslaved crew members, steered the ship away from a dock in Charleston, S.C., after its white captain, pilot, and engineer disembarked for the night. In the wee hours of May 13, 1862, Robert Smalls, an enslaved Black man, stole the Confederate ship the CSS Planter.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |