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

In an unexpected and exciting special addition to the Roosevelt House calendar, we are honored to present the revered veteran Congressman Jim Clyburn (D-SC) in conversation about his new book, The First Eight: A Personal History of the Pioneering Black Congressmen Who Shaped a Nation.

From one of the country’s most venerable and esteemed legislators, The First Eight delivers the powerful story of the pioneering Black congressmen from South Carolina who were elected in the aftermath of the Civil War—and reveals why it took nearly a century before the election of the ninth, James Clyburn himself.

Today, the South Carolina congressman is renowned as a Democratic “kingmaker” and one of our nation’s most distinguished political leaders. But, as he so passionately writes in The First Eight, the remarkable men who came before him blazed the path for his ascent. Among them are Joseph Rainey, who was born enslaved in 1832 and became the nation’s first Black politician elected to the U.S. House of Representatives; Robert Smalls, a Civil War hero who fled the Confederacy, stole a ship, and fought for the Union Army; and Richard Cain, an associate of Emanuel AME Church who ran a widely read newspaper for Black South Carolinians.

A unique blend of history and memoir, The First Eight is both a monument to the legacies of these eight trailblazing Americans, and a clear-eyed assessment of how far the nation has come—and how far it has left to go—in our ongoing struggle for true democracy.

Hon. 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, as well as the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation’s Liberty and Justice for All Award, and the Harry S Truman Foundation’s Good Neighbor Award. Congressman Clyburn holds honorary degrees from nearly 40 colleges and universities. In 2024, he received from President Joe Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.

Harold Holzer, moderator, is Director of Roosevelt House. A prolific author with 56 books to his credit, he won the 2015 Lincoln Prize for his Lincoln and the Power of the Press and was awarded a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship. He has written widely on the Civil War, including: The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views (2006); Emancipating Lincoln (2012); and Lincoln: How Abraham Lincoln Ended Slavery in America (2012), the official young readers’ companion book to Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln, for which Holzer served as historical consultant.