Introduce the state speakers. Cell phones or any other devices that go bang should be turned off. Tonight there is one event. If i could just head everybody fold up their chairs at the end of the event. Last thing is for the q a session after the presentation if i could ask you to step to the side we have a microphone we do record this. For posterity if we could just get that all on recording that would be wonderful. Thank you. I would like to introduce tonights author. The amazing story and escape from slavery to union here. It is a second major work with the secret rescue. Nominated for the 2014 at gore award of her best and number one wall street best seller the heroic journey in the life of robert small. In 1862 seats at confederate steamer. Freed himself in his family as all of you will soon see and learn he have a mission that did not end there. And enjoy the illustrious career of a state and national legislator. They declared that reading these like recovering a national heirloom that was lost, stolen or buried over decades. Kate library has made it clear as a staff writer and editor as well as the Smithsonian Magazine she resides in Raleigh North Carolina and in conversation today misaligned barry is there. The great greatgrandson of mister smalls. Mister moore is an accomplished businessman. Please join me in welcoming kate library. We decided before that im going to ask the first question it feels awkward. Supporting her so i just want to do my part to welcome you all here. Its great. We have a chance to do this once before and this looks like a great crowd and i hear it is a friendly one. We are just Getting Started doing a little bit of a q a. His life. In some other stuff. I think im going to start youve written before you could have written about. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for being here. Many of them that were ever here. Nothing personal i was looking for my second book and its its often a difficult task. You are bringing something new to the table. Given how many books are out there. But my youngest brother actually sent me this. I have done through my work at National Geographic and smithsonian in writing for the New York Times i was amazed to find that he would not be a betterknown figure. I want to know more. I wanted to know what compelled him taking his family with him and risking everything after having a life and been told that he was equal. It looks like there was room in the marketplace. The most obvious question to ask you. What influences they have. From a metaphysical level has been profound in the sense is again person you grew up in will numeral and secured. I have the benefit of growing up in the 70s while boston massachusetts has a branding of braiding of a progressive liberal kind of place i can assure you that around issues of race in the 70s it was not. He and i deployed to a prep school in new england back in those days. Thank you for coming. So a couple of levels. As a child at first it just kind of was. Lived with rubber up until the teen years. She have the benefit of living a long life. So my mother grew up with firsthand stories about she was maybe three or four years old or something. She did not remember much about that night. And then obviously would be the secretary of washington and everything. It has sustained me and it filled me or supported my sense of selfesteem. With my ethnicity and race. They have really balanced a lot of that. And president of a museum in charleston. And so is the gift that keeps on giving. I think for me my challenge how i do i continue that gift to my children. One of his name is robert. I just feel an obligation. I am expressing the obligation in some degree. But most important around passing along. And hopefully someday at my grandchildren. Its been wonderful. When you were thinking about that story. It is not a new story. Why that could be relevant today. Certainly people know Robert Smalls name. And as a town in South Carolina where he was born and raised until he was 12. There is definitely a market need decision when you are picking a topic you want to make sure that you are bringing stuff to the table. But there was also i think in order to really appeal to modernday readers. They have semi choices. You cant pick up a newspaper or turn on a tv without seeing some issue regarding race in our country. If you combine it with the plight of african africanamericans during the civil war it illustrates so much. Telling the story during the civil war which is the focus of the book and then also telling the story to understand history you have to understand some the issues the africanamericans are facing. And some issues that our country was dealing with at the time i learned so much in the recent parse process of this book. An idea how much of a decision it was whether or not to free the slaves for so long so when Robert Smalls actually sailed to freedom he was considered contraband. Mostly they did not see themselves that way. Technically the government in the United States have not decided what they were going to do. To get some of the racial issues that we are dealing with we have to fully understand the full story. And Robert Smalls story he was in the center of everything. When that others took it over. Who had no food and did not know how to care for themselves. The government had to figure out how to help them. The first efforts as a reconstruction happened there. He made the charleston South Carolina. It was a place where the state of South Carolina signed the ordinance. It was the spiritual capital of the confederacy. He was really in the middle of it all. Its deftly an important aspect of the story. I think in the 70s at the tabernacle church. Can you explain what the relevance is at the tabernacle church. I had been blessed to have an opportunity to talk about Robert Smalls many time over the times over the course of my life. Hundreds of times. But the first time that i spoke publicly about Robert Smalls was april 1976 and i thing i think i was 13 or 14 years old. The eighth grade trip that everybody does to dc. I was Robert Smalls a day in South Carolina that day. There was a big parade. I get a chance to ride in a float with the lieutenant governor. And then afterwards at that Tabernacle Baptist Church where he is buried i have an opportunity to unveil the bus that is of him there. I remember being quite terrified they washed over me as im sitting on the stage. And took it exciting away and never really felt anxious about speaking in public whether that was robert moving his hand over me. It was a great opportunity. Our family has a traveling exhibit. They traveled around the country whenever that opens someplace that person happens to be connected to you all the better. That person happens to be connected to you all the better. The exhibit is in buford right now. Tell me about the Research Process what is the Research Process like for Something Like this. I was trained by the very best. Kind of picking below the hanging fruit. In that typically from there you will find other angles of places that you want to research. I know that Robert Smalls attention filed when the National Archives and that was something that once he sailed the ship to freedom the union and end up hiring him as a civilian boat pilot. He couldve been enlisted that the other men that were on board the ship were. But sanyo the part it was the admiral that took the ship from smalls needed him as a pilot and the only level that Robert Smalls could be enlisted at would be the very lowest and not a very wellrespected position and he never would have been allowed to be a boat pilot. He was very impressed with his navigational skills and Everything Else he have done. For many years smalls head to fight for a pension. In every way. But technically he was not. I knew that there was pension files were there. It was very amazing to see some of the writing and handwriting in these notes that are still at the archives. The haggling museum in delaware they have because of the connection to the story. They have a lot of the papers that were delivered. They have the order book that was on the planner. For me there is nothing like seeing Something Like that in person. It just makes the story so we real. Some of the museums and archives also have items and then one of the most upsetting documents that i came across was a bill of sale for a small future white. They have not met yet. And seen that on the piece of paper just brought the history to life. As a white person doing the story. It hit home in a way that you hadnt realized. I never in the wildest dreams wanted to find family members. I thought it was a little bit easier. That made it a lot easier also. We see the impact i can see it through the family. The impacts the education had have in your life. It seems like something that your mom has her phd. Smalls was illiterate until he was in his 20s. An education became very important to him. He saw that as a way to freedom. He passed along to his children. I think that was really instilled in the family it seems like something you all about you very much. I try to turn everything that i can. And you never know where thats can be. I was determined to find out henry mckees reaction. He was a smalls owner. And i wanted to find out his reaction to seizing the planter. And there was not a lot of information out there in a family diary that was published it was a small mention that he was working at a confederate hospital. And had just lost two children from illness. And quickly just mentioned that he knew about it. It wasnt that they have gotten everything that i hoped they would get. But it was important for me to know what kind of reaction he have you never know when thats can a come up. The fact that 70 so many of them had been digitized. That really helps. A lot. Hours and hours of time. So part of the reason why the story is not better known is for certain parts of the country there was a strategic effort to mute the story in 2012 we have a commemoration in charleston commemorating smalls taking the boat to freedom. Someone can up to me afterwards. Very emotional and upset. Im angry with you. Because Robert Smalls my history traced. Im not quite sure what response he expected of me and i wanted to be sure not to disrespect him personally i just wonder if you were doing a book about abe lincoln there would be an addition to original research it would be all kinds of other authors who would uncover things and with Robert Smalls it probably wasnt a whole lot of that and then there was the whole influence of muting again. I just wonder how that played if at all in your research. As one of the challenges that i think people are doing nonfiction. We can only write what we validate. I certainly did. It is definitely an issue in the fact that he was illiterate until he was in his 20s there was not a lot of writing to go back on. It was definitely something i have to sing think long and hard about. And that is why its so important to find as many sources as you possibly can i met one of the defendants who was the captain on board he had decided that he and his fellow officers would go into town which was against confederate orders. Thus leaving the area open for smalls to do what he did. This allowed it to happen. We met the descendent. And he told me when we interviewed. They was really the first generation to not be embarrassed by the story. Hes very open to his role and came to our reading in austin. I think that speaks volumes to the legacy of the south in that division in the country in some way. My question back to you is what it was like and who did you meet and what it was like to meet them has been really surreal to meet these descendents of other people. I met this gentleman i met a descendent of the family that owned the planter i met a great grandson. Up in philadelphia in a museum event. And i sort of think of it abstractly to some degree. On her for two years ago all of those peoples lives were intersecting. And then they broke apart the arc of those lives kind of came back together it is interesting. It is odd how that happens but i would love to get as many of those descendents together around a table and just talk about what did you hear. What did you grow up hearing. The disc dupont descendents didnt know much about it at all. I think being with them you probably have lots of other things to think about. It has been interesting and fascinating. Picked up Little Things here and there. Again Robert Smalls is sort of an under told story were there things as you did your research and you are beginning writing that really sort of surprised you what surprised you the most about the story. I think what surprised me the most was how i knew a lot about what have happened during that time beyond Robert Smalls about africanamerican relationships to their owners et cetera, et cetera. The brutality was certainly there. I think that how much the lives of the people were intertwined that robert was a unique position. At the age of nine years old they were taken to that house in town. Ripped from her mother. But she spoke gola which was the language spoken by a lot of the west african slaves who have their own languages but were pushed together. He have the benefit privy to a lot of information because he was working as a house slave. I did not realize the extent of the difference between that. Certainly no one would ever wish anybody to be an enslaved person working at home but compared to life on a plantation it was a far better life. There was regular food, and close and you were aware of a lot that was going on. I think that was a most shocking things. The extent to which the south try to reinstate slavery. I kind of know it but knew it but i did not know to the extent. When they were implemented it was quite shocking. That was a history that i was talking about that we all need to understand more to fully grasp the history. I would ask you is there anything in reading the books that surprise you. I think it was a Childrens Book back in the 60s. I love books. I think for me it was an incremental kind of experience. You read about something that you didnt know. It almost feels like you are opening a door to an information. Information that was there but for some reason you have not accessed at or something. For me it was just broadly a lot of details and it also to a certain degree because i feel linked to him its odd we are just getting to know each other and here she is telling me something about who i am. Ive had to get used to it. In thinking about writing the book and fashioning the story you made a strategic decision to stop in a certain place can you talk about that point in my you decided that. Im referring to the fact. After the war. He served as a congressman for five terms. They certainly have Death Threats during reconstruction. But for me i felt that the civil war was what made him the person that he was. His childhood as well as the civil war and it launched launched him into this political career. Personally i wasnt as interested in getting into the details about certain legislation. I really wanted to tell the story of him as a person. As much as you can without having access to diaries and things like that. The seizing of the planner is sexy and exciting. And everybody wants to know more about it. But understanding and ripping off the without anyone being his guardian really. He was expected and hired out for work. He was expected to turn over most of that paycheck. Each month. That was important to me. And thats what i felt like made him the man that he became. I was able to talk about his life after the civil war but i really wanted to focus on what made him the person that he became. I will ask you one more question and then we will move to some questions from the audience. I used the term enslaved person throughout the book in addition to slave whenever it felt right to me. That was a decision that my editor and i made. Who really enlightened me about the issue. I wondered if you could talk a little bit because i know it through facebook and other means as a preferred tone for you as well. There has been a long journey from those days when they were around for africanamericans to kind of sees the narrative of our lives and our existence. In our identity. I think it goes into the stream of evolution more personally it has been passed down the lid that validity set him. That robert you may be enslaved but you are not a slave i think the distinction that she was trying to offer. He does not define who you are. This is a difference between an adjective and a noun. And so the combination of this. In the last decade or so people have been starting to make that distinction in the fact that i have some personal connection to that thinking i think that resonates with me. They had been the history in this country is like this much. In the span of time i dont think that defines those people who suffered through that. That was the role that they were forced to play. It reminded me of their humanity in some ways. Countless articles about the suffering that was happening. But when you start you start grouping people together and the slaves they need this. And then they Start Talking to vigil people men, women and children becomes much and becomes much more powerful to people as well. Distant talk really for a minute about this museum that we are building. One of the galleries that we are building is called atlantic connections. It seeks to uncover that. The fact is that the people that came here it wasnt this group of people it was people from hundreds of different cities i think that understanding adds to the sense of humanity that you just talk to you. I think its important. With that does any of anybody had any questions that they could ask. Thank you very much for your words. Im finding the book to be truly meaningful. For me one of the most meat moving aspects. Was learning about how robert small ultimately purchase the h