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Benjamin "Pap" Singleton (1809 – 1892) was an American activist and businessman best known for his role in establishing African-American settlements in Kansas. A former slave from Tennessee who escaped to freedom in 1846, he 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. After the end of Reconstruction, Singleton organized the movement of thousands of black colonists, known as Exodusters, to found settlements in Kansas. A prominent voice for early black nationalism, he became involved in promoting and coordinating black-owned businesses in Kansas and developed an interest in the Back-to-Africa movement.
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Although it is known that Benjamin Singleton was born in 1809 into slavery in Davidson County near Nashville, Tennessee, details of his early life remain scant. He was the son of a white father and an enslaved black mother. As a youth, he was trained as a skilled carpenter but regretted never learning to read and write. Reportedly Singleton made several attempts to run away but was unsuccessful.
In 1846 Singleton managed to escape to freedom. Singleton made his way north along the Underground Railroad to Windsor, Ontario, and remained there a year before relocating to Detroit, Michigan. In Detroit he lived as a scavenger and used what resources he could to help other escaped slaves find their way to freedom in Canada. Singleton remained in Detroit until after the Civil War had been underway. During this time, he worked as a carpenter.
After the Union Army occupied Middle Tennessee in 1862, Singleton returned and took up residence in Nashville and worked as a cabinetmaker and coffin maker.[1] The experiences of freedmen subject to racial violence and political problems led Singleton to conclude that blacks would have no chance for equality in the South. Disgusted by political leaders who failed to deliver on promises of equality for freedmen, in 1869 Singleton joined forces with Columbus M. Johnson, a black minister in Sumner County, and began looking for ways to establish black economic independence.
In 1874, Singleton and Johnson founded the Edgefield Real Estate Association with the goal of helping African Americans obtain land in the Nashville area. Unfortunately, white landowners were unwilling to bargain with them and wanted too high prices for their land. Convinced that freedmen must leave the South to achieve true economic independence, in 1875 Singleton began to explore the idea of planting black colonies in the American West. His real estate organization was renamed the Edgefield Real Estate and Homestead Association. In 1876 Singleton and Johnson made a personal trip to Kansas to scout out land in Cherokee County in the southeastern corner of the state. Heartened by what he saw, Singleton returned to Nashville and began recruiting settlers for a proposed colony.
In the summer of 1877, Singleton led approximately seventy-three black settlers to Cherokee County near the town of Baxter Springs.[2] Once the settlers arrived, they began negotiating with the Missouri River, Fort Scott, and Gulf Railroad for land to build their proposed Singleton Colony. Unfortunately, rich lead deposits had been discovered in the area the previous year, which led to a mining boom and caused land prices to rise too high. Without the ability to buy land, they could not create a colony in Cherokee County. Singleton began looking elsewhere.
Singleton began looking for government land which his settlers could acquire through the 1862 Homestead Act. He found some available land on what had been the former Kaw Indian Reservation near the town of Dunlap, Kansas, on the borders of Morris County and Lyon County. Dunlap was situated along the tracks of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, familiarly called the Katy Railroad. The land was marginal, but in the spring of 1878, Singleton's settlers left middle Tennessee for Kansas via steamboats on the Cumberland River. The following year they officially established the Dunlap Colony.[2] More than 2400 settlers emigrated from the Nashville and Sumner County areas.[1] Most settlers lived in dugouts during their first year on the Great Plains. They stuck it out and made the colony a success.
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. Unfortunately, the arrival 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 and made plans to build a Freedmen's Academy in the town. Singleton had no more dealings with his colony at Dunlap.
In 1881, Benjamin Singleton was seventy-two-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, Kansas, was to combine the financial resources of all black people to build black-owned businesses, factories, and trade schools. The CUL formed in 1881 and held several conventions. The organization 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 Singleton briefly joined with St. Louis, Missouri, businessman Joseph Ware and black minister John Williams in proposing that blacks migrate to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. That idea did not develop. In 1885 Singleton moved to Kansas City where he began to organize around Pan-Africanism. In 1885 Singleton founded the United Transatlantic Society (UTS) with the goal of having all blacks relocate from the United States to Africa. This was a time when Bishop Henry McNeil Turner had his own proposed African migration movement.
The UTS lasted till 1887 but never managed to send 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 in 1892. The location of his grave is unknown.
Benjamin Singleton was survived by several children. His son, Joshua Singleton, eventually settled in Allensworth, California, a black agricultural settlement in Tulare County. Joshua's grandchildren through his daughter Virginia Louise Williams were John Williams, Jr., Midge Williams (1915-1952), Charles and Robert, who 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 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.[3] In 2002, American scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed "Pap" Singleton on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.[4]
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. Nicodemus was founded independently by black settlers from Kentucky in 1877, a full year before Singleton founded his successful colony at Dunlap.[2]
