February 13, 2026
The East Point/College Park Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. hosting James E. Clyburn for an intimate conversation around his new book, ‘The First Eight.’
The East Point/College Park Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. is bringing James E. Clyburn, South Carolina’s only Democratic lawmaker, to Atlanta for an intimate conversation around his new book, The First Eight.
Fresh off the November 2025 release of The First Eight, Clyburn, the U.S. representative for South Carolina’s 6th Congressional District, is bringing his revelatory story to Atlanta. On Feb. 15, the South Carolina Congressman will host a live discussion and signing centered on the groundbreaking book, which revisits the legacy of pioneering Black congressmen elected in the aftermath of the Civil War and explores why nearly a century passed before a ninth, Clyburn himself, would take office.
First elected in 1992, James E. Clyburn is now serving his 17th term, representing a district that spans many of South Carolina’s majority-Black communities, including areas around Columbia, Charleston, Beaufort, and much of the state’s Black Belt. Since 2021, he has been the lone Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation and has served as its dean since 2011.
Through his new book and national tour, Clyburn aims to excavate the often overlooked history of Black congressional pioneers.
“Ten years ago, I released my memoir that I called ‘Blessed Experiences: Genuinely Southern, Proudly Black,’” Clyburn told the Greenville Journal upon the book’s release. “Soon after that, some folks came to visit me in my Washington office, and they saw the photos of these eight people on the wall in my conference room. One of them asked who they were and when I explained to them who these eight people were, she said to me that she thought I was the first African American to serve in Congress from South Carolina.”
The book chronicles the lives of trailblazing Black lawmakers who served in Congress during Reconstruction, highlighting figures such as Joseph Hayne Rainey, Robert Smalls, Richard Harvey Cain, Alonzo Jacob Ransier, Thomas Ezekiel Miller, and George Washington Murray — pioneers who represented South Carolina’s districts in the years following the Civil War. Through The First Eight, Clyburn aims to highlight how entrenched racism led to a nearly century-long absence of Black congressional representation in a state with a large Black population.
“I’m hopeful that the reader of this book will see how Jim Crow came into being,” Clyburn said. “After Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, he was succeeded in the presidency by Andrew Johnson, (who) was a racist. He was a big sympathizer with the Southern way of life. He started doing stuff to undo what Lincoln had done.”
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