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Exodusters: African American Migration to the Great Plains
An excerpt from Benjamin Singleton’s testimony before Congress, 1880.

An excerpt from Benjamin Singleton’s testimony before Congress, 1880.

After the sudden wave of African American migration from the South to Kansas in 1879, the US Senate appointed a committee of five senators to investigate the cause of the migration. The committee interviewed over 150 people, including Benjamin Singleton, who describes his role in the Exoduster Movement and his reasoning for promoting migration away from the South in this excerpt from his testimony.

Citation Information
Excerpt from “Report and Testimony of the Select Committee of the United States Senate to Investigate the Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States, Part III,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/414c019cb476c51e42a5a1cf6b3c1bbb.
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 15 of 15 in the Primary Source Set Exodusters: African American Migration to the Great Plains

Previous Item
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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