BENJAMIN “PAP” SINGLETON
“FATHER OF THE EXODUS” for the movement in 1879.
(1809–1900)
Born: 1809, Davidson County, TN
Died: February 17, 1900, in Kansas City, MO
Place of burial: Union Cemetery, Kansas City, MO
The Great Exodus
Benjamin “Pap” Singleton was an American activist and businessman best known for his role in establishing African-American settlements in Kansas.
Held in slavery in Tennessee, Singleton escaped to freedom in 1846 and became a noted abolitionist, community leader, and spokesman for African-American civil rights. He returned to Tennessee during the Union occupation in 1862 but soon concluded that Blacks would never achieve economic equality in the white-dominated South due to the fact white landowners refused to sell land to blacks at fair prices.
After the end of Reconstruction, Singleton with the help of Columbus Johnson organized the movement of hundreds of blacks out of Tennessee and into the Midwest known as the Great Exodus. A prominent early voice for Black nationalism and became known as the “FATHER OF THE EXODUS” for the movement in 1879. He was involved in promoting and coordinating Black-owned businesses in Kansas.
By 1879 of the “Great Exodus“, 50,000 freedmen known as Exodusters had migrated from the South to escape poverty and racial violence following whites’ regaining political control across the former Confederacy. They migrated to Kansas, Missouri, Indiana and Illinois seeking land, better working conditions, and the chance to live in peace. Part of Topeka, Kansas, was known as “Tennessee Town” because of many migrants from that state. Most had no direct connection with Singleton’s organized colony movement, but Singleton and his followers were sympathetic to their plight. Many white Kansans began to object to the arrival of so many desperately poor blacks into their state. Singleton stepped forward to defend the Exodusters’ right to try to make better lives in the American West.
In 1880, Singleton was requested to appear before the United States Senate in Washington, D.C., to testify on the causes of the Great Exodus to Kansas. Singleton rebuffed the efforts of southern Senators to discredit the Exodus Movement. He testified to his own success in setting up independent black colonies and noted the terrible conditions which caused freedmen to leave the South. Singleton returned to Kansas as a nationally recognized spokesman for the Exodusters. But the migration of so many poor blacks put more of a financial burden on the Dunlap Colony than the original settlers could bear. By 1880, the Presbyterian Church had taken charitable control of the settlement; it planned to build a Freedmen’s Academy in the town. Singleton had no more dealings with his colony at Dunlap.
During 1881, Singleton was 72 years old, and most people referred to him affectionately as “old Pap.” He was still a formidable figure and used his reputation to bring together blacks into an organization called the Colored United Links (CUL). The goal of the CUL, which he created in Topeka, was to combine the financial resources of all black people to build black-owned businesses, factories, and trade schools. The group held several conventions and was successful enough locally that Republican Party officials in Kansas became interested in its potential political strength. Presidential candidate James B. Weaver of the Greenback Party met with CUL leaders, to discuss fusion between the two groups. After 1881, CUL membership faltered, however, and the organization soon fell apart.
After the failure of the CUL, Singleton became convinced that blacks would never be allowed to succeed in the United States. In 1883, he briefly joined with Joseph Ware a St. Louis, Missouri, businessman, and John Williams, a black minister, in proposing that American blacks migrate to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. That idea was not developed.
In 1885, Singleton moved to Kansas City, where he began to organize around Pan-Africanism. In 1885, he founded the United Transatlantic Society (UTS), with the goal of having all blacks relocate from the United States to Africa, where such Western-influenced colonies as Sierra Leone and Liberia had been founded by Great Britain and the United States, respectively. In this time period, Bishop Henry McNeil Turner also had his own proposed African migration movement.
The UTS lasted till 1887 but never sent anyone to Africa. In poor health, Singleton retired from his life of activism. He raised his voice one final time in 1889 to call for a portion of the newly opening Oklahoma Territory to be reserved as an all-black state.
Benjamin Singleton died on February 17, 1900, in Kansas City, Missouri. He was buried in Union Cemetery, Kansas City, Missouri on February 26, 1900.
Family
Benjamin Singleton married and was the father of several children. Two of his children – Emily, born about 1840 in Tennessee, and Sarah, born about 1858 in Michigan – wrote letters to their father from East Nashville, Tennessee, during the mid-1880s. An undated note regarding Singleton’s testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee in 1880 quoted Singleton as saying: “I have been a slave fled to Canada when my children were small and nineteen years after when I returned they were grown.”
His son, Joshua W. Singleton, eventually settled in Allensworth, California, a black agricultural settlement founded in Tulare County. Joshua’s grandchildren, through his married daughter Virginia Louise Williams and her husband John, were John Williams Jr., Midge Williams (1915-1952), Charles and Robert Williams.
As young adults, they started singing together in the Bay Area as the Williams Quartette. In 1928 they started touring as the Williams Four. In 1933, they had a successful tour in Shanghai, China, which was a destination for increasing numbers of European refugees, and Japan. Midge Williams also sang as a swing jazz soloist in the late 1930s and 1940s. She recorded with a group as Midge Williams and Her Jazz Jesters.[10]
HONORS
In 2002, American scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed “Pap” Singleton as among the 100 Greatest African Americans.[11]
HISTORY OF THE COLONIES
Singleton did not establish his Real Estate Association prior to 1874 and did not make his first scouting trip to Kansas until 1876; the Singleton Colony in Cherokee County failed almost immediately after being settled. Nicodemus, Kansas was founded independently in 1877 by black settlers from Kentucky, a full year before Singleton founded his successful colony at Dunlap.