Singleton, Benjamin "Pap"
1809-1900 · Contribution: 1873-1880
Migration Organizer
Organized the “Exoduster” migration that helped lead tens of thousands of formerly enslaved Southerners to claim independent farmland in Kansas under the Homestead Act, founding the Edgefield Real Estate and Homestead Association and Black farming colonies including Singleton Colony and Dunlap Colony

Portraits are AI-generated interpretations, not photographs.
Quick facts
- Born
- 1809
- Active since
- 1873
- Category
- Agriculture & Food
- Best known for
- "Father of the Black Exodus"Exoduster migrationKansas farming colonies
Impact on the world
Singleton turned the dream of independent Black landownership into a mass migration out of the post-Reconstruction South. He built the settlements and networks that made escape from sharecropping possible.
Sources
- History.com
3 more sources and references are available to members.
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