Don’t forget the western migration
Heading West Was Part of Black History, Too
Commentary by Furman University President David E. Shi
History obscures as much as it reveals. The American West has long been viewed as a land of opportunity and freedom, but people rarely associate the settlement of the Great Plains with black history. Yet when federal efforts to “reconstruct†the South after the Civil War collapsed in the face of Klan violence and widespread racial oppression, African Americans in large numbers headed west, crossed the Mississippi River, and formed over 30 independent farm communities in Kansas.
Most of the settlers came from Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Some 6,000 southern blacks arrived in Kansas in 1879 alone, and more than 20,000 came the following year. A few walked the whole way. They were called Exodusters because of their “exodus†out of the South in search of a promised land free of racism and poverty, like the Israelites who fled ancient Egypt. As one of the Exodusters explained, they came in search of “better homes, larger opportunities, and kindlier treatment.â€
One of the leading promoters of black migration to the West was Benjamin “Pap†Singleton. Born a slave in Tennessee in 1809, he escaped and settled in Detroit, where he operated a boardinghouse that became a refuge for other runaway slaves. After the Civil War he returned to Tennessee, convinced that God was calling him to rescue his black brethren.
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By 1890, some 520,000 African Americans lived west of the Mississippi River. Although most remained impoverished, they generally fared better economically than they would have in the South. About three-quarters of the Exoduster families in Kansas came to own their own farms and homes. “When I landed on the soil,†former Louisiana slave John Lewis remembered, “I looked on the ground and I says this is free ground. Then I looked on the heavens, and I says them is free and beautiful heavens. Then I looked within my heart, and I says to myself: I wonder why I never was free before?†(more…)
Related
Benjamin “Pap” Singleton (PBS)
