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Exodusters: African American Migration to the Great Plains
An illustration from Harper’s Weekly depicting white men subjecting a black man to violent intimidation while voting, 1876.

An illustration from Harper’s Weekly depicting white men subjecting a black man to violent intimidation while voting, 1876.

As Reconstruction ended, white Southerners and the conservative Democratic Party used violence, economic exploitation, discriminatory laws, and political disenfranchisement to subjugate African Americans and undo their gains during Reconstruction. This illustration depicts one scenario in which these oppressive tactics were used. While the black man is ostensibly free to vote as a result of the Fifteenth Amendment, the white men subject him to threats and violence for attempting to vote freely. This illustration specifically calls out operatives of the Tennessee Democratic Party for threatening violent and economic retribution against African American voters.

Transcription:

Text in bottom left:

“The negroes of the South are free -- free as air,” says the parliamentary Waterson. This is what the State, a well-known Democratic organ of Tennessee says, in huge capitals, on the subject: “Let it be known before the election that the farmers have agreed to spot every leading Radical negro in the county, and treat him as an enemy for all time to come. The rotten ring must and shall be broken at any and all costs. The Democrats have determined to withdraw all employment from their enemies. Let this fact be known.”

Caption, bottom center:

“Of course he wants to vote the Democratic ticket!”

Democratic “Reformer.” -- “You’re as free as air, ain't you? Say you are, or I’ll blow your black head off!”

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Citation Information
“Of course he wants to vote the Democratic ticket!,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/9d983c8a5707bafbab346c2a9e7caa51.
Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.
Courtesy of Tennessee State Library and Archives via Digital Library of Tennessee.

Tips for Students

For this source, consider:

  • the author's point of view
  • the author's purpose
  • historical context
  • audience

Item 1 of 15 in the Primary Source Set Exodusters: African American Migration to the Great Plains

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An illustration from Harper’s Weekly depicting white men subjecting a black man to violent intimidation while voting, 1876.
An 1875 newspaper article inviting Tennessee’s African American residents to participate in a state convention about migration to Kansas.
A photograph of Benjamin “Pap” Singleton, 1880.
A broadside distributed by Benjamin Singleton advertising migration to Kansas, 1878.
A sheet of lyrics for a song entitled, “The Land that Gives Birth to Freedom,” about leaving Tennessee for Kansas, 1877.
A map showing black towns and settlements in Kansas and Oklahoma in 1900.
A letter from John Turner of St. Louis authorizing William Lloyd Garrison to raise funds for migrants en route to Kansas, April 2, 1879.
A print from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper depicting African Americans en route to Kansas via St. Louis, 1879.
A photograph of a crowded steamboat with migration organizers Benjamin Singleton and S. A. McClure superimposed in the foreground.
An illustration from Harper’s Weekly entitled, “The Negro Exodus: The Old Style and the New,” May 1, 1880.
An excerpt from the Second Report of the Kansas Freedmen’s Relief Association, 1880.
A 1910 photograph of Elsie and Lela Scott, children of Exodusters John and Julia Scott, who settled in Stafford County, Kansas.
A photograph of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Nicodemus, Kansas.
An excerpt from an 1887 map of Graham County, Kansas, including Nicodemus, an African American community founded in 1877.
An excerpt from Benjamin Singleton’s testimony before Congress, 1880.

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