US Navy Renamed Warships After Black Sailor

US Navy
120720-O-ZZ999-017 PACIFIC OCEAN (July 20, 2012) The Royal New Zealand Navy fleet oiler HMNZS Endeavour (A11), center, refuels the Royal New Zealand Navy frigate HMNZS Te Kaha (F77), left, and the Republic of Korean destroyer ROKS Choi Young (DDH 981). Twenty-two nations, more than 40 ships and submarines, more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel are participating in the biennial RIMPAC exercise from June 29 to Aug. 3, in and around the Hawaiian Islands. The world's largest international maritime exercise, RIMPAC provides a unique training opportunity that helps participants foster and sustain the cooperative relationships that are critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on the world's oceans. RIMPAC 2012 is the 23rd exercise in the series that began in 1971. (New Zealand Defence Force photo by LAC Amanda McErlich/Released)

The US Navy is planning to rename one of their warships to honor statesman and black sailor as they try to remove names that commemorate the confederacy.

USS Chancellorville, the guided missile destroyer was named to remember their triumph in their civil war. Now the warship had been renamed USS Robert Smalls, as per news from the US Navy we got at Monday.

Robert Smalls was born into slavery in S. Carolina back in 1839. He took part in the Civil War for the confederate army side. He was posted in the Charleston streamer planter. Back in 13th May, 1862, he drove the ship from the harbor rescuing his family and some other slaves along with a military cargo and handed the ship to the Navy. Robert Smalls later become Charleston Planter’s Captain.

Robert Smalls has also served as an attorney for the Afro-American community and he was fortunate to lead one of those very first boycotts in public for segregated transportation. As the Civil War came to an end, Smalls became the brigadier general of the militia of South Carolina and he served in that legislation.

US Navy To Rename Warships After Black Sailor:

Carlos del Toro, the US Navy seretory said that Smalls was someone who deserved a ship named after him and he hoped that this way this story of Smalls will survive for eternity. He also said that with this renaming of the warships of US Navy, is more focused to remove the fragments of the history of USA that doesn’t stand in the same podium with the country’s tenets. Carlos said that this will help them to remember the heroes and the crucial events of USA’s history that were often overlooked. USS Robert Small is currently at Yokosuka, Japan and is carrying the carrier strike group 5.