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  3. Jim Clyburn | The First Eight : A Personal History of the Pioneering…


Jim Clyburn | The First Eight : A Personal History of the Pioneering Black Congressmen Who Shaped a Nation

Wed, November 12, 2025 7:00 P.M. Add to your calendar
Parkway Central Library
Cost: $5.00
REGISTER

The Author Events Series presents Jim Clyburn | The First Eight : A Personal History of the Pioneering Black Congressmen Who Shaped a Nation

Update: Tickets are sold out! No standby line will be available. To join the ticket waitlist, please RSVP through our registration page. Additional tickets may become available between now and the event date.

Today, South Carolina congressman James E. Clyburn is renowned as a Democratic kingmaker and our nation's most august Black political leader. But behind him stand eight other remarkable men: the first Black politicians to go to Congress from his home state, and who blazed a path for his own ascent. Since his own arrival in Congress in the early nineties, Congressman Clyburn has been guided by the wisdom and example of these men, and also instructed by their struggles -- especially with the demon of American racism. South Carolina's first eight Black congressmen all rose to office following the Civil War and emancipation, but then the dark veil of Jim Crow fell across the South. It would take nearly a century before the ninth Black representative, Clyburn himself, was elected.

In The First Eight, Congressman Clyburn shares these men's stories, and their message of liberty, with the nation they served. Among them are Joseph Rainey, the first Black politician to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in our nation's history, who was born enslaved in 1832; Robert Smalls, iconic for his heroism during the Civil War, when he fled the Confederacy, stole a ship, and fought for the Union Army; and Richard Cain, who ran a widely read newspaper for Black South Carolinians and is associated with the Emanuel AME Church, one of the oldest and most distinguished Black churches in America, and where neo-Nazi Dylan Roof killed nine Black congregants in a mass shooting in 2015. Through the trials, tribulations, triumphs, and challenges that all nine men faced, Congressman Clyburn reveals a whole new way of understanding the period between the Civil War and the present.

A unique blend of history and memoir, The First Eight is both a monument to the legacies of these eight trailblazing Americans, and also a clear-eyed appraisal of how far we've come, and how far we have left to go, in our nation's ongoing struggle for true democracy.

James E. Clyburn is the Congressman representing South Carolina’s 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he previously served as Majority Whip. A more than 30-year Congressional veteran, he has been an influential and effective legislative leader and an unwavering voice for civil rights. Born in Sumter, South Carolina, during the Jim Crow era, he has been awarded the NAACP’s highest honor – the Spingarn Medal, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation’s Liberty and Justice for All Award, the Harry S. Truman Foundation’s Good Neighbor Award, and holds honorary degrees from nearly 40 colleges and universities. In 2024, he was bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians.

Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night!

All tickets are non-refundable.

The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees.
Ages
  • Adult
Event Type
  • Author Events
  • Speakers and Lectures
Event Series
  • Author Events - Ticketed Series
Event Tags
  • African American
  • Author Events
  • Biography and Autobiography
  • Politics
  • History

Parkway Central Library
1901 Vine Street (between 19th and 20th Streets on the Parkway)
Philadelphia, PA 19103-1189
215-567-4341

Upcoming Events at Parkway Central Library

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Upcoming Author Events - Ticketed Series Events

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Thursday, October 16, 2025
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Nic Stone | Boom Town | Parkway Central Library
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
7:00 P.M.
Harmonia Rosales | Chronicles of Ori : An African Epic | Parkway Central Library
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
7:00 P.M.
Karine Jean-Pierre | Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines | Parkway Central Library
Monday, October 27, 2025
7:00 P.M.
Keisha N. Blain | Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights | Parkway Central Library
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