Henry Adams was born enslaved in Forks of the Road, Louisiana. After gaining freedom, he became a Union Army soldier, political leader, and civil rights activist during and after Reconstruction. He is best remembered for his testimony before a U.S. Senate committee in 1880, which described in detail the violence and voter suppression Black citizens faced in the South after the Civil War.
Adams also helped organize one of the largest Black emigration movements of the 19th century, known as the Exoduster Movement, encouraging African Americans to leave the South and settle in Kansas to escape racial oppression.
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