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

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Agriculture & Food

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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.

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