Power and Purpose: Congressman Jim Clyburn Talks Legacy

0:01You're listening to Mick Unplugged, hosted by the one and only Mick Hunt. This is where purpose meets power and stories spark transformation. Mick takes you beyond the motivation and into meaning, helping you discover your because and becoming unstoppable. I'm Rudy Rush, and trust me, you're in the right place. Let's get unplugged.

0:28Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged. And today I literally get to sit down with one of my heroes. You know, he's advised presidents. He's reshaped the course of American history with a single endorsement. We're talking about from the halls of Congress to the heart of the movement. His voice has never wavered. It's been a compass for change, for justice, and for unity. He is the visionary. He is the resolute. He is the legendary. He is my congressman, Mr. Jim. Clyburn. I am so honored to spend some time with someone being from South Carolina, being a young Black man from South Carolina.

1:15You've shaped who I was, who I've become, and the legacy that I'm trying to create. And that all stemmed from you showing me it was possible. So I wanted to take just a moment and just say thank you. And I mean that from my soul. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And I would be remiss if we didn't talk about Out of the Gate, this amazing book that you were writing, The First Eight. And we talk about the legacy I want to leave behind. You put your legacy in writing for us. I'd love for you to just talk about The First Eight, where the thought came from to put this out, and who you hope to touch with this amazing book that you have.

2:00Thank you. When I published my memoir 10 years ago, 2015, one day, a group came to my office when I was a majority whip, and I had on the wall of my conference room these eight pictures. They're pictures of the eight African Americans who served in Congress from South Carolina before me. One of the people in the group asked me who they were. And when I told them, she said to me, I thought you were the first African American to serve in Congress from South Carolina. And I kind of playfully said to her, no, before I was first, there were eight. And later that day, I said to my staff, you know, maybe one day after I get over this book we just published, I might write a book about these eight people.

2:54because I think so many of them were so important to our history. That Joseph Rainey, who was the first African American to be elected to the House of Representatives, and sworn in on December 12, 17th. Richard Cain, who was number four in that group, Richard Cain became an AME bishop and had pastored Emanuel AME Church down in Charleston. Then there's Smalls, Robert Smalls from Beaufort. Robert Smalls is only, to me, genuine hero of the Civil War. And it served in the State House of Representatives here in Columbia and in the Congress. I said, I'm going to write about these people. And so I started taking notes and not really getting too serious about it.

3:46Then January 6, 2021, shit. And while we were sitting in this so-called undisclosed location, having been rushed off the House floor for safety, I said to people around me, I know what's happening here. They are trying to get this count stopped so they can get this election thrown into the House of Representatives, just like was done in 1876. And when that happened, that is what started the end. It's a reconstruction. That's what started the beginning of Jim Crow. I said, that is what is happening here. So then I got serious about doing this book. And then when my communications director retired in the middle of doing the book, she said to me, I'm going to retire, but I want you to finish this book.

4:43You write. I'll do the copy editing. I'll do the footnotting. You just write and send me what you've written. And that's what led to the book. And that's what led to this production that's going to be released on November 11th. And I can't wait. Again, being from South Carolina and knowing what that history means to me, I almost wonder what took so long. but then I go the only person that could do it is Jim Clyburn so I don't ask what took so long knowing you like I know you and I've followed you forever and I've seen you speak and I've got to shake your hand I know I'm not going to ask you to remember but I've got to shake your hand I know how you storytell so I can't wait to see how you put this together in story form because you are one of the greatest orators of my generation in the state of South Carolina.

5:47My kids don't even know what the word orator means, right? But you were one of the most eloquent, not from how you talk, but the impact that your words make. When did you realize you had that gift? Well, when I was growing up, my dad was a minister, and we often talked about me following him into the ministry. And, of course, I didn't know what my dad was doing, but we had, among the rules we had to live by, one was every morning before breakfast, we had to recite a Bible verse. And then every evening before retiring to bed, we had to share with him and my mother a colored event. We didn't have TV, so you had to read the afternoon newspapers when it was delivered to our home.

6:37and that was a requirement. Finish your homework, then let's talk about this car I did back. And so I grew up with all of that and I used to watch my dad. He was a pretty good orator himself and I was blessed with the vocal chords that he had in, And I guess when I got to South Carolina State, because when I was in high school, it was more the band and the choir for a while. There were people who thought that I should sing. But when I got to South Carolina State, I got involved in the sit-ins. And it so happened that before every march or even every meeting that we had, I was always called on to do the prayer, to open the meeting.

7:35It's when I first detected that people were just as attracted to my intonations as they were to my recitations. And so I would always be creative with these prayers I was giving. For instance, you know, I was sensitive to people's different religious backgrounds. And so I would always open my prayer with addressing the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent being. That's the way I always did it, in order to not insult folks. There were just one or two people on stage campus who called themselves Muslims. Then every now and then, especially during the movement, there were a lot of Jewish people involved with our efforts.

8:25And I didn't want to insult anybody, so that's the way I would open every prayer. But then people started talking to me about my voice, and that's when I first realized it. My dad said a lot of things and offered a lot of compliments, but he never said anything to me about my voice being in a distinct. And then it still happens. I sometimes get on airplanes, and the moment people, they recognize my voice before they recognize me. And so I found that out when I was a student. And so I can understand, and I can tell the difference now when I develop allergies. My voice changed. People don't recognize me.

9:08Well, again, you're someone who I studied and someone who, when I was in junior high and high school and we had to have speech class or we'd go and do debates, again, things that the young kids don't do now. I would pattern myself after you and I would study the pace of which you spoke and how you put inflections on certain words and how you would use your body and your gestures to get certain points across. And I always felt like it's a lost skill. And so I got to a point now where like my kids will study some of your speeches and some of your talks because I want them to understand the power, number one, that you have had always, but how they can train themselves and really learn from men like you.

9:58And so, again, I'm just appreciative on so many levels. Yes, sir. And I want to come back to the first eight again, because when I first heard about it, I immediately said, wow, the power of mentorship. And I'm sure that you didn't know all eight of those, obviously, personally, but I'm sure that all eight provided mentorship to you, just like you have to so many that maybe they don't know you personally, but we follow who you are. Talk to us about what mentorship means to you and how these eight have kind of formed that group of mentors, even though, again, you don't personally or didn't physically know all of them.

10:39You know, people ask me who the heroes in my life are. My dad, I always mentioned first because he was an interesting person who grew up in Cushel County, South Carolina at the time when the state of South Carolina did not provide high school for African Americans. And so he only went through the seventh grade. And then when he was not allowed to go to school anymore, he self-taught and he became sufficient enough to pass a college entrance exam and got into college, but then was never allowed to graduate college because the state had a law at that time that you could not get a college degree if you did not have a high school diploma.

11:23And so when he could not produce his high school diploma, they would not allow him to go into his senior year of college. And so that is the kind of stuff and experiences. I would talk to him often about his experiences. Now, I did not know that he had not graduated college until about six months before he passed away. And I found that out from a person who was in college with him who asked me about him. I wanted to know whether or not I knew him because of my last name. And so when he told me that my dad didn't show up that senior year, I then left Hampton County where this was taking place and went straight to Sumter.

12:09They asked my dad for an explanation. And he did it. 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 had I not soaked up some of the stuff my dad told me.

13:01Because 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. And when he stole that ship, that planter, he made a stop on his way out of the Charleston Harbor to pick up his wife and other friends and delivered that ship to the Union soldiers.

13:59Then, within six months of having escaped from slavery, he's sitting down with the president of the United States. In August of 1862, he escaped from slavery back in May. In August, he was in Washington, D.C., sitting down with Abraham Lincoln. And he came back to South Carolina with authorization to recruit 5 ,000 African Americans to fight in the Union Army. And so he is a genuine hero. Then he ends up with significant wealth, ends up spending 10 years in the state legislature and 10 years in the United States Congress doing all that without ever achieving a form of education. Now, he did hire folks to teach him because he fights for education.

14:54And so I say that Robert Smalls is the most consequential South Carolinian who ever lived. And I had a gentleman one time. We were down in King Street, South Carolina. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke. The first time he spoke in South Carolina after the passes of the 1965 Vultrys Act was in the little town of King Street down in Williamsburg County, which is in my district. And so I was down there to speak for the 50th anniversary of his visit to King Street. And while I was talking to the group, I reminisced a little bit about Robert Smalls having represented that same area in the United States Congress and how proud I was to have inherited his constituency.

15:44Well, I said at the time that I thought that Robert Smalls was the most consequential South Carolina who ever lived. So I came down from the podium. A gentleman came up to me who I knew, who was white, big supporter of mine. and he said to me, he said, no, that was a terrific speech. And he said, you know what? I think I agree with you that Robert Smalls was the most consequential black South Carolina who ever lived. And I said to him, that is not what I said. I said that Robert Smalls is the most consequential South Carolina, barring none. Yes, sir. He looked at me with an interesting smile, walked away, and that was the last time I was if we ever had a conversation.

16:30But I think I can demonstrate. Some people may say it's John C. Calhoun. Some people may say it's Strom Furman. But if you look, the consequences, the consequences of his life can mess you up to Robert Smalls. And so there are things in this book about Robert Smalls. But there are things in this book about people that Thomas Miller of the eight. Miller was number seven. Robert Smalls was number six. Miller succeeded Smalls. And one of the interesting things that people will find in this book, that Miller was African-American by choice, not by birth. Miller was the first president of South Carolina State.

17:18The state was first brought online in 1896 Thomas E. Miller was his first president. He had already been defeated for Congress by George Washington Murray. Well, he was not black, not African American. He was the grandson, according to him, of Thomas, one of the size of the Declaration of Independence. Yes, sir. Now, he admits to having been born out of wedlock and being given up for adoption. And he was adopted by an African-American family down in what's now original South Carolina. And they moved to Charleston where he began to work and later went to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and HBCU.

18:12And when he graduated from Lincoln, other than going back to New York where he had come from before going to Lincoln, he decided to come back to South Carolina. and he went to law school at the university of south carolina wow and that's another thing you learn in this book university of south carolina it was the only southern institution that was integrated during and after the civil war wow wow i could listen to you all day back here i could listen to you all day here's what i want to do sure because i know how busy you are but you mean so much to me. The first 20 people that are watching or listening to this that message me the first eight, I'm going to purchase a copy of the book for them.

19:03I appreciate it. I want to do that. I want to have you on again, anytime you want to be on. You mean the world to me. This book is that important. We'll have links from your team to where they can go get the book. But the first 20 people that message me, the first eight, I'm giving you a copy of the book. I'm going to buy them for them. Well, thank you so much for doing that. I hope that people will find in this book, let's just say substance and sustenance to weather the storm in this country. I do believe that we're going to get through these challenging times because I saw what I have seen, what these eight people did and did not do, and what we can learn from it.

19:53I really believe people understand it. This book was written with that in mind. You got it. Congressman, again, I thank you so much for your time. Thank you for who you are. And I can't wait to see you soon in person. Thank you. That's another powerful conversation on Mick Unplugged. If this episode moved you, and I'm sure it did, follow the show wherever you listen. Share it with someone who needs that spark and leave a review so more people can find their because. I'm Rudy Rush, and until next time, stay driven, stay focused, and stay unplugged.