Terror, Hope, & Exodus: The Testimony of Henry Adams, Freedman

Summary

Podcast Summary:

New Books Network – "Terror, Hope, & Exodus: The Testimony of Henry Adams, Freedman"
Host: Max Rudin
Guests: Stephen Hahn (NYU), Kidada Williams (Wayne State University)
Published: May 9, 2026

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Overview

This episode delves into the newly published complete testimony of Henry Adams, a formerly enslaved man, soldier, labor organizer, and political activist. Adams’s 1880 testimony before a Senate committee investigating the “exodus” of Black Southerners after Reconstruction brings to light the terror, organizing, and determination that shaped Black life and politics in the post-Civil War South. Stephen Hahn, who wrote the edition’s introduction, and Kidada Williams, a leading historian on racial violence and Black resistance, join host Max Rudin to explore Adams’s world, testimony, activism, and enduring significance.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introducing Henry Adams and His Testimony

[00:05–05:13]

• Context:

  • Adams testified before a Senate committee in 1880 about Black conditions in Louisiana post-emancipation.
  • The testimony details violence, exploitation, and the struggle for Black autonomy and political participation.

• Excerpt Highlights:

  • Adams’s vivid descriptions: seeing lynched bodies, burnt property, and acts of terror committed by white vigilantes.

    “I belong to God, but not to any man.” – Henry Adams, as recalled by Kidada Williams [3:05]

  • Adams’s sense of personal peril in testifying:

    “I expect to be killed for what I’m telling you here. I don’t expect to live no more.” – Henry Adams [4:57]

[Discussion:]

• Stephen Hahn: Adams’s world was one of pervasive terror, especially for those striving for independence and community leadership.
• Kidada Williams: The violence Adams described was a systematic effort to deny Black people value and participation in democracy.

2. Identity, Community, and Agency

[05:13–11:04]

• Who Was Henry Adams?

  • Enslaved, moved from Georgia to Louisiana; son of a preacher; became a soldier and organizer.
  • Emerged from slavery with strong organizational skills and a deep sense of community.
  • Not an isolated ‘great man,’ but deeply rooted in collective Black organizing.

• Notable Quotes:

  “No one spends more time thinking about freedom than someone denied it.” – Kidada Williams [09:36]

  • Many freed people prioritized family, land, and survival over voting, but the most successful were especially targeted by white violence.

3. The Testimony as Historical Document

[11:04–14:24]

• Nature & Purpose:
  • Congressional investigation launched because Black southerners were fleeing the South en masse (“snap migration”) to escape violence.
  • White leaders feared losing a source of labor; political motives on both sides shaped the committee’s work.
  • Adams was subpoenaed due to his known leadership in Black organizing and migration movements.

4. Black Organization, Economic Violence & Resistance

[14:24–20:43]

• Founding Committees & Intelligence Networks

  • Post-Army, Adams and other soldiers created committees to monitor racial conditions and organize for community well-being.
  • Economic exploitation was rampant: Black sharecroppers frequently swindled, and legal recourse could be deadly.

  “Those that went to law…some of them were killed, some whipped, and some ran away.” – Adams testifying [15:40]

• Secrecy and Communication:

  • Organization relied on secrecy due to constant threat; networks for information sharing were crucial but went largely undocumented.
  • “Knowledge is power” – grassroots networks filled informational voids left by absent institutions.

5. Broader Black Activism in and Beyond Adams’s Time

[20:43–23:53]

• Extent of Activism:

  • Black activism and organization were more extensive and coordinated than often realized, though much remains undocumented.
  • Adams’s experience and activism, as well as similar investigations (e.g., Klan hearings), reflect broader nationwide grassroots efforts.

• Laborers as Leaders:

  • Adams’s committee explicitly excluded politicians and ministers—emphasizing working-class, grassroots leadership.

6. Allies, Funding, and Political Complexities

[23:53–28:41]

• White Allies:

  • Some White Republicans (“carpetbaggers”) and a small number of local whites participated in interracial alliances, sometimes suffering violence themselves.

• Funding for Activism:

  • Adams funded his travels from his own earnings as a faith healer and scout, highlighting the importance (and difficulty) of Black economic autonomy in the era.

• Relationship with Black Elected Officials:

  • Adams had a complicated relationship with politicians and ministers; migration movements sometimes conflicted with established Black leadership interests.

7. Loss of Hope and the Exodus Movement

[28:41–37:26]

• Pivotal Disillusionment:

  • By 1877, with Redeemer governments back in power, hope for change in the South faded:

    “We felt we had almost as well be slaves under these men.” – Adams [29:16] “Our only hope…is the exodus of our people to some country where they can make themselves a name and a nation…” – Adams [29:53]

• Migration Patterns:

  • Black Southerners increasingly sought safety and opportunity elsewhere—rural to urban migration, and the large “Exoduster” migration to Kansas and farther West.
  • Both planned group moves and desperate flights occurred; the movement alarmed Southern landowners reliant on Black labor.

8. Congressional Response and Testimony's Significance

[37:26–44:23]

• Skepticism and Partisan Spin:

  • Democratic committee members posed hostile, bad-faith questions; official reports diverged starkly along party lines.
    • Democrats dismissed charges of violence; Republicans acknowledged the reality but lacked effective solutions.
  • The investigation raised visibility but led to little change for Southern Blacks at the time.

• Enduring Value:

  • Adams’s testimony was less influential in its own day than as a historical document, offering a uniquely detailed look at Black aspirations, activism, and adversity during Reconstruction.

    “It is a really important document historically…Those of us who try to understand this era…have a precious gem.” – Kidada Williams [44:23]

9. Henry Adams’s Later Years and Legacy

[44:23–48:17]

• Aftermath:

  • Adams did not return to Shreveport after testifying; last known activities were in New Orleans, with records ending circa 1884.
  • His movement and values persisted—subsequent migration, organizing, and the broader Black freedom struggle continued.

• Grassroots Intellectual History:

  “He’s just one of the great…organic intellectuals…giving us an opportunity to see how this emerges.” – Stephen Hahn [46:31]

10. Discovery and Publication History

[48:17–53:30]

• Scholarly Rediscovery:

  • Both Hahn and Williams discovered Adams through the work of Nell Irvin Painter (“Exodusters”).
  • Adams has largely been absent from popular historical memory; his testimony (published in the Congressional Record) was not previously available in book form.

• Primary Sources:

  • Adams’s available writings are in government archives and scattered correspondence; no known dedicated personal archive exists.

11. Broader Questions: Black Nationhood and Assimilation

[53:30–57:32]

• Making a Name and a Nation:
  • Black Americans, denied full participation, built independent communities and institutions.
  • The testimony reflects a tradition of striving for collective land, self-determination, freedom, and security—values persistent into the present.

12. “Failure” or Ongoing Struggle?

[57:32–61:33]

• Comparison of Two Henry Adamses:
  • The panel draws contrasts between the “Brahmin” Henry Adams, author of “Democracy,” and Henry Adams, the freedman, emphasizing the latter’s fight for a freedom he might not see, but one that sustains hope and organizing for generations.

    “He was fighting for freedom…that he knew he might not live to see…” – Kidada Williams [59:00] “I think Henry Adams…reminds us that they learned a lot and…that’s not what they learned [about assimilation].” – Stephen Hahn [55:56]

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Memorable Quotes

• “I belong to God, but not to any man.” – Henry Adams, via Kidada Williams [03:05]
• “I expect to be killed for what I’m telling you here. I don’t expect to live no more.” – Henry Adams [04:57]
• “No one spends more time thinking about freedom than someone denied it.” – Kidada Williams [09:36]
• “Those that went to law…some of them were killed, some whipped, and some ran away.” – Adams testimony [15:40]
• “We felt we had almost as well be slaves under these men.” – Adams [29:16]
• “Our only hope…is the exodus of our people to some country where they can make themselves a name and a nation…” – Adams [29:53]
• “It is a really important document historically…a precious gem.” – Kidada Williams [44:23]
• “He’s just one of the great…organic intellectuals...” – Stephen Hahn [46:31]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [00:05] Introduction & panel welcome
• [03:05] Adams’s testimony excerpts (violence & resilience)
• [05:24] Context: everyday terror in the postwar South
• [07:45] Adams’s biography and organizing roots
• [11:31] Why Adams testified; political context
• [14:35] Post-Army organizing; economic oppression
• [18:00] Committees, secrecy, and information science
• [20:43–23:53] Activism, documentation, and labor politics
• [24:13] White Republican allies and interracial coalition
• [25:28] Adams’s self-funding and Black economic constraints
• [27:49] Relationships with Black officials
• [28:48–29:53] Loss of hope and embrace of Exodus
• [32:41–37:26] Migration patterns and their impact
• [37:54] Congressional inquiry and bad-faith interrogation
• [40:41–44:23] Immediate and historical impact of the testimony
• [44:38–48:17] Adams’s fate and ongoing movement
• [48:58] Discovery and publication of Adams’s testimony
• [53:30] Black nationhood and the quest for self-government
• [57:32] Henry Adams (freedman) vs. Henry Adams (Brahmin); questions of “failure”
• [61:33] Outro & upcoming events (content ends)

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Conclusion

The episode vividly excavates Henry Adams’s voice from obscurity, illustrating the courage, ingenuity, and collective action of newly emancipated Americans in an era of intense backlash. Adams’s testimony is recast as both a window into late 19th-century Black life and a foundational document of ongoing Black struggle and hope. Through scholarly insight, archival excerpts, and engaged audience questions, the podcast demonstrates how Adams and his community navigated terror, built organizing networks, and laid groundwork for generations of Black resistance—reminding listeners of the past’s enduring relevance to American democracy and freedom.

Transcript

[Stephen Hahn]

Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Moderator]

I'm Max Rudin, president and publisher of Library of America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to publishing authoritative new volumes of great American writers and to keeping the multivocal democratic spirit of our literary tradition a vital part of the culture. Warm thanks to LOA members and to all of you here tonight for supporting our work and these LOA live programs. In March 1880, a remarkable man, an army veteran, laborer, faith healer and political activist from northwest Louisiana traveled to Washington, D.C. to testify before a Senate committee investigating the exodus of formerly enslaved people from the South. Vividly describing terrorist violence and insidious exploitation of freed people by the very men who held US slaves, Henry Adams also spoke of black resistance, opening a rare window onto the astounding courage of common laborers, sharecroppers, soldiers, and others who sought, in the aftermath of emancipation, to realize their freedom. Henry Adams eyewitness testimony has just been published in full for the first time in over a century by Library of America, and it will change the way you understand the aftermath of the Civil War. The introduction is by Stephen Hahn, who joins us this evening. Who was Henry Adams and how and why has his story survived? What does it reveal about the courage of newly emancipated Americans in the face of brutal political and economic conditions? How does it change our understanding of black activism during Reconstruction? And what does it tell us about the vulnerability of democracy and the rule of law? To. To explore these and other questions, I'm joined by two distinguished historians. Stephen Hahn is professor of History at New York University. He is the author of A Nation Under Our Black Political Struggles in the Rural South From Slavery to the Great Migration, which won the Pulitzer Prize, and most recently, Illiberal A History. He joins us from New York City. Kidada Williams is Professor of History at Wayne State University. Her most recent book is I Saw Death Coming, winner of the Organization of American Historians Civil War and Reconstruction Book Award. She joins us from Detroit. We welcome your questions and comments and invite you to share your name and where you're tuning in from. The Q and A button is on your menu bar. Now, please welcome Kidada Williams and Stephen Hahn. Hello to you both. Thank you so much for joining us tonight.

[Stephen Hahn]

Thank you for having us.

[Kidada Williams]

Thank you for joining us.

[Moderator]

We powwowed before this hour and decided we would begin with some brief excerpts from the testimony of Henry Adams. And Kidada, would you start us off, please?

[Kidada Williams]

Sure. In the year 1866 in the parish of Cato, State of Louisiana, I seen hanging to a limb of an oak tree about Six miles south from Shreveport, the body of a colored man. He was dead when I seen him. About six miles north from Kichi, I saw a wagon belonging to a colored man burning with all his things. Even his mules were burned to death. While on my way to Sunny Grove, I seen the head of a colored man lying on the side of the road. Whilst traveling on my way to Desoto Parish, a large body of armed white men met me and asked me who I belonged belonged to. I answered them and told them that I belong to God, but not to any man. They then asked me where was my master. I told them the one I used to have was dead and I had not had none since 1858. But worse, those who would hire me and pay me the largest price.

[Moderator]

Thank you, Steve. A brief excerpt from the Q and A.

[Stephen Hahn]

Yes, from the testimony. Question, Are you a pretty good stump speaker among your people? Dr. Adams's answer oh, yes, sir. I can speak to them in my language. Question pretty freely, too. Can't you answer for Adams? Well, they hear me and believe what I tell them, and I aim to tell the truth under all circumstances. Question and yet you lived at Shreveport 20 years. Adams's answer, no, sir, not 20 years. Question well, pretty nearly. And you never got killed? Adams's answer no, I ain't been killed yet. But it ain't by the will of them people that tried

[Moderator]

your daughter. This last moment, this last piece.

[Kidada Williams]

Well, I expect to be killed for what I'm telling you here. I don't expect to live no more. After making mention of these places, I won't be allowed no show. If I was to tell you all why, good gracious, thank you.

[Moderator]

So, Steve, let's start with you. I mean, in reacting to these passages and in general, what was the situation for freed persons in the south after emancipation?

[Stephen Hahn]

Well, Henry Adams was very good at capturing it, especially any freed person who was interested in becoming independent, who was not ready to submit, and who played a role in trying to educate and then politicize other freed people. As the quote suggests, this is a world of terror. And it's a world in which traveling anywhere, unless you had someone with you, a white person with you, or to vouch for you, was always an extremely dangerous, if not traumatic, experience. I think one of the things he conveys is that it's well beyond anything you could have imagined. In the patrol system of the pre Civil War period, there seemed to be white vigilantes out all the time and any black person who was on the road by himself or with Another black person was subject to confrontation and to violence.

[Moderator]

Kidada, do you want to add anything to that?

[Kidada Williams]

Yes, I'll just say I think what his testimony reveals is his and other black people's clarity on the larger freedom denying enterprise that we see during this period and the links to which those who are opposed to African Americans freedom and participation in American democracy are willing to go. The killings that he describes are part of, of this, this kind of exterminationist violence that's really designed to underscore for black people the lack of value their lives have in the minds of many of those who had previously held them in bondage.

[Moderator]

Yeah, yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit more about him. I mean, so this is. We have his voice here, I mean, telling these horrific stories and yet also projecting something about his own character. So I guess I would ask, you know, who, what strikes you about these passages? I mean, what strikes you about this man? I guess I would say, like, who was he? Like, what do we know about him from, from his testimony? Whoever wants to go first.

[Stephen Hahn]

I mean, you know, he's an enormously courageous, independent minded human being. He had been enslaved. He had been moved by his enslaver from Georgia to Louisiana. His father, who preached the gospel, was also, as far as we can, an incredibly independent and courageous minded person. And it was clear from the testimony and from other things we know about him that he was out front from the beginning. You know, even before he enlisted in the army, he was increasingly aware and perceptive of what was going on around them. Obviously his in term in the army was three years was very, very important to him and he came out even more politicized. And what also strikes me is how quickly he and his comrades move to organization. That seems, you know, a lot of people just don't seem to recognize that enslaved people came out of slavery, obviously with an understanding of how to mobilize themselves, how to organize themselves. And without that, it's hard to imagine what. In fact, I mean, a lot of times we think about, well, it was the extension of the franchise to formerly enslaved people. And that of course, was of enormous importance. But we can't ignore what they brought into that moment and how they made that moment so significant.

[Moderator]

Kidada, anything you want to add to that?

[Kidada Williams]

Yes, I'll just briefly say I agree completely with Steve. I think what we have to remember is that no one spends more time thinking about freedom than someone denied it.

[Stephen Hahn]

Right.

[Kidada Williams]

And so when freedom comes, African Americans already, they know what time it is, and so they move in that way, which is why we see so much of the widespread violence against them. You know, they've been what, you know, they've got this pent up energy and they've got a constellation of things that they need to do all at once. Families, land, livelihood. You know, the vote. You know, I think for some of the newly free people the vote is important, but it comes after gaining control of their families, establishing their households, acquiring jobs for a steady income, etc. So they're doing all of this work and many of them are successful. And what we know is that the most successful, the most organized people are the ones who are deliberately targeted with this violence. And so what Henry Adams testimony tells us about him is that he's part of this larger project and that he is in community. He is not someone who's isolated and operating on his own. We like to isolate, I think, people we see as leaders and kind of carve them off from the people around them. But Henry Adams is very rooted in community and he's part of a larger community of people who are trying to make freedom real.

[Moderator]

Well, you've mentioned, I mean, Steve mentioned organization and kidadi, you mentioned community and that, that actually is the perfect segue to the next segment. But before we go there, I just think there are people may, may want a little bit of context and background on what. What is this testimony like? Why do you know? Why was Henry Adams testifying? What was the Kidada. Maybe you want to start, just say, explain, you know, what this document, what this is that we have.

[Kidada Williams]

Members of Congress are inspired to investigate what appears to be this. Some of us call it a snap migration. It's a large migration or the appearance or preparation for a large migration of people. In this case, it's black people who are trying to escape the death, making violence of their former enslavers. And so for the ruling class, there is the concern about the loss of exploited laborers. And so there is all of this concern in hand, wrinking who's responsible for this, what's going on? And so the investigation is really designed to try to get a sense of what's inspiring these black people to pack up and leave.

[Stephen Hahn]

Depending on, you know, they're Democrats and Republicans on the committee and they each have very somewhat different ideas about what they're trying to reveal. The Democrats are trying to reveal that there's all sorts of political manipulation around this because there's a potential migration and exodus, as it was often called, not only from the lower south to Kansas, but from possibly North Carolina to Indiana. From the Democrats point of view, the idea of this was to try to tip Louisiana from the Republican. I mean, from the Democrats to the Republicans. From the point of view of the Republicans, of course, at the this particular moment, they want to demonstrate the kind of harassment, violence and almost impossibility for formerly enslaved people to find a life for themselves. And so when they submit reports after the testimony, not surprisingly, the Democrats and Republicans have a very different set of conclusions about what they thought they found

[Moderator]

hard to believe, actually.

[Stephen Hahn]

Yeah.

[Kidada Williams]

Right.

[Moderator]

Thank you. And Henry Adams is called to testify as. Does he volunteer to testify? Is he called to testify because he's subpoenaed and is that he's subpoenaed to

[Stephen Hahn]

testify because he is clearly known. And by the late 1870s, he. Although, you know, he's mostly been in Louisiana, he spent some time in Texas and Arkansas and Mississippi, at least by his lights. That was pretty much of the compass of his moves. Clearly recognized as a major local organizer, a major leader and somebody who is very interested in organizing a migration out of the south, whether to Liberia or potentially to another part of the United States.

[Moderator]

Okay, thanks. I think that's a good. That's a good segue into the next section, which is about the organization. Yes, Steve, if you could maybe read the first passage of Act 2 here.

[Stephen Hahn]

Adams is talking about what happens when he and several other soldiers muster out of the army. So a parcel of us got together and said we would organize ourselves into a committee and look into affairs and see the true condition of our race. To see whether it was possible we could stay under a people who had held us under bondage or not. Some of the members of the committee was ordered by the committee to go into every state in the south where we had been slaves and post one another from time to time. About the true condition of our race and nothing but the truth. We worked our way from place to place and went from state to state and worked amongst our people in the fields everywhere to see what sort of living our people lived. Whether we could remain in the south amongst the people who had held us as slaves or not.

[Moderator]

Thanks, Kidada. Me.

[Kidada Williams]

During the year, about 25 colored persons showed me their contracts and their account sales of their cotton. After balancing all, I found they had been swindled out of about seventeen hundred and ninety dollars. Some went to law to recover it, but it did no good. The courts were against the colored man. Those that did not go to law were better off. For those that went to law. Some of them were killed, some whipped. And some ran away.

[Moderator]

Steve, that last passage about political.

[Stephen Hahn]

I was at an election in 1870, in November in the city of Shreveport, and I heard white men tell colored men that if they voted the Republican tickets that they would not let them have any more credit, nor would they bond them out of jail, that they would have to go to the Damn Yankees or Carpetbaggers to take them out. And the colored men told me that they were afraid to vote the Democratic ticket because they might make them slaves again. Many of them asked me what did I think was best. I told them as to our freedom, our rights and our votes, that no Southern man was our friend, that the Southern people would always be arrayed against us as long as we lived because we were free.

[Moderator]

What do we learn from these passages, do you think?

[Kidada Williams]

I think we learned that in addition to extreme physical violence, there is a wide assortment of economic violence that's designed to essentially create conditions where freedom is only a name, right to deny black people the means of labor, autonomy, to strip them of wages, to force them to work for a year, and then at the threat of violence or at the threat of Klan violence, deny them their share of the crop. So I think part of what he's talking about is the extensive economic violence that is being stripped of newly freed people who are trying to get on their feet and transcend slavery.

[Moderator]

Yeah. Steve, what do you make of the committee? I mean, this idea of forming an organization which is basically an intelligence gathering. Right. I mean, it's interesting.

[Stephen Hahn]

Yeah. I think of all of these quotes as kind of the Bob Moses approach to politics and political organizing. I mean, Henry Adams was not someone who got on his high horse to tell people what to do. He clearly had the sense immediately after he got out of the army that he needed to find out about the lives that other freed people lived. And so the committee seemed to be large, but I think there were about 150 he claimed who circulated around the south and reported back. And it was from this information that he began to develop his own ideas about a social and political way forward. It's also clear that he is deeply embedded in these communities, that his political activities, I mean, he is someone who helps with their contracts. So he's somebody who is a labor organizer when it comes to elections. He's somebody who clearly is going to align with the Republican Party and at the same time advise, you know, local people not simply as to what they should do, but how to think about what's going on. It's really an extraordinary thing. And I know at various places in the testimony. He doesn't really want to let on all of the quote, unquote, business he has going to different places. And, you know, like many aspects of African American political life, both before and after the Civil War, secrecy is of the utmost importance because of the lethal danger they always found themselves in.

[Moderator]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, do you get the sense that in a certain way, like, knowledge is power in this? In other words. In other words, it's like, you know, you can't read in the newspaper what's happening, you know, in the next county. So they do it for themselves in a way.

[Stephen Hahn]

You know, communication is so important and how. We still don't know nearly enough about how networks of communication were built and sustained, especially in the face of this kind of harassment. And without that, it would be very, very. I mean, look at the. How far he travels all the time. And, you know, part of what makes this possible is people know he's coming and. And people are ready for him. They know about him. So, you know, this is one of the many questions we still need to pursue further.

[Moderator]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, well, you both talked about that in terms of the actual kind of engagement with communities and the advising on labor contracts and giving voting advice and that kind of thing. I'm just curious how much. I mean, outside of this text, how much do we know about black activism like that in this area in this period? I'm curious what both. Yeah, go ahead.

[Kidada Williams]

Yeah. Look, I think it's more widespread than we think, but as Steve acknowledges, it's not all documented. There are instances like these testimonies and the Klan hearings, for example. You do get a sense in all of these that there is extensive communication, not only in individual towns or black enclaves, but across regions. Even the work that Adams, or excuse me, that Adams committee is doing, they're sharing the information by post. What we also know is they are compiling this information and sharing it with each other. So they know that what's happening in my community is not only happening here, it's happening across the region. And they're using this knowledge to make. To sort of make informed decisions and to petition lawmakers for relief from the violence, the economic violence, the physical violence, the terrorist violence, et cetera, that they are experiencing. And so, again, we don't have widespread documentation, but the documentation that we have suggests that these communication networks are quite extensive.

[Stephen Hahn]

I mean, what makes. I think, Adams's testimony and his other communications with, say, the American Colonization Society is how richly layered it is. But it also suggests, and I think rightly so, that this is emblematic of political activism all over the South. And, you know, the federal investigations, whether it's into the Klan or the Joint Committee on Reconstruction or of the many elections that were compromised by violence. I mean, it's great material. And then there are a lot of black newspapers, and there's interesting correspondence. I mean, I found Union League correspondence in places like Texas, where all of a sudden, you know, they sign on and you go find out who they were. Anyway, I think Dada, what she's saying is right. But in a sense, what Adams encourages us to do is not to assume that this is an isolated sort of example, but that he just enables us to have a deep, deep understanding, which is, you know, here's a man who says, I'm a laborer, and the committee only admitted laborers as members. No politicians, no ministers. And again, this is in good part of the history of the working class in the United States.

[Moderator]

Yeah, that's interesting. Before we move to the next segment, there are a couple quick questions from the audience which are, I think, relevant to this conversation. Bonnie Zedek asks, to what extent was there any support for formerly enslaved individuals, Any allies other than black people? Question mark. If so, were these allies also at risk for violence?

[Stephen Hahn]

Violence also subject to violence at risk? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the Republican Party had hoped that white support in the south would be more substantial than it turned out to be. But there were, you know, many white people who were what we might call carpetbaggers, Northerners who went south, some of whom bought or leased plantations themselves, who were really important, important allies, and who helped build an early Republican Party in the south that was interracial. And so that is why, as Eric Foner's book on Reconstruction, I mean, this is sort of a revolutionary political moment because of its cross racial alliances. And they were subject to a great deal of violence, some of it lethal.

[Moderator]

Thank you. Two other quick questions before we move on. Otis Sproul asks, do we know how Mr. Adams was funded during his travels? Either one of you have any insight into that?

[Stephen Hahn]

He says in the testimony that he's funded by himself. I think that does come up. And they want to know. For example, he is a faith doctor, and by his account, he's pretty well paid for it. And then he's a scout for the United States army, and he's paid pretty well for that, although he says it's really very dangerous work. But according to what he says, he pretty much relies on whatever resources he seems to have.

[Kidada Williams]

And I'll just add to that. I think sometimes we get this question because people, they don't recognize the difference that free labor makes. Right. And so, you know, he's working and other people around him, all of the people in the committee, they're working often, you know, in some instances may be harder for themselves than they did for the people who held them in bondage. And so we shouldn't underestimate the amount of earnings that black people have. And we should also recognize that the earnings they have are what they have left over or what they have instead of spite of all of the economics that they're enduring. So imagine, you know, what they might have been able to achieve had they not been experiencing all of the economic violence.

[Stephen Hahn]

Yeah, Kidada makes a really good point, because what we see in this testimony is mostly Henry Adams's activity as an organizer. But, of course, that only took up a portion of his life. And, you know, with bits and pieces from the testimony, we know, as Gadatta said, that he was working and working very, very. I mean, he was, you know, sawing logs, and he was working as a manager on plantations, and he was, you know, looking for work constantly. It wasn't easy to do. So, you know, putting together a life was very, very difficult, even for someone who was as talented and, you know, really formidably driven as. As he was.

[Moderator]

Okay, and thank you. And last one on this, John Rogers says, I'm trying to understand whether Adams had any allies among elected black officials of the day back when that was possible during Reconstruction. Either one. Cadado or Steve want to answer that one.

[Stephen Hahn]

That's a little bit. I think he does, but he has a complicated relationship with people who are in electoral politics, in part because as it becomes, in his view, apparent that they need to leave the south, it creates real problems both with ministers and with political leaders who, you know, the ministers don't want the Congress. I mean, this shows up, you know, during the great migration later on, and, you know, ministers don't want their congregations to take off, and political leaders are, at best, ambivalent about it. So, you know, this is. Something comes up, and obviously Frederick Douglass is, you know, brought into this on a wider stage. He was dubious about this kind of immigrationism.

[Moderator]

Thank you. Well, that's our Next Act. Act 3. Kidada, if you wouldn't mind reading that

[Kidada Williams]

first passage question about what time did you lose all hope and confidence that your condition could not be tolerated in the Southern states? Well, we never lost all hopes in the world till 1877. Not until 1877? No, sir. In 1877, we lost all hopes. Why did you lose all hope in that year?

[Moderator]

Good. Just remember that last one. Yeah.

[Kidada Williams]

Well, we found ourselves in such condition that we looked around and we see that there was no way on earth, it seemed, that we could better our condition there. And we discussed that thoroughly in our organization along in May, we said that the whole south, every state in the south, had got into the hands of the very men that held us slaves from one thing to another. And we thought that the men that held us slaves was holding the reins of government over our heads in every respect, almost even the constable up to the governor. We felt we had almost as well be slaves under these men.

[Moderator]

Steve, you want to read that last bit?

[Stephen Hahn]

But we feel and know that unless some protection is guaranteed to our race that we will cease to be a race or people, and that we cannot live in the south in peace, harmony, and happiness. And we feel that our only hope and preservation of our race is the exodus of our people to some country where they can make themselves a name and a nation and be happy and prosperous.

[Moderator]

So one issue this raises is, you know, what the effect. What the end of reconstruction meant for freed people, and in what ways it changed the way they understood their situation and their strategy. Steve, you want to go at that first or.

[Stephen Hahn]

Yeah, sure. I do think that his testimony gives us a sort of chronologically deeper sense of interest in leaving the South. For the most part, we tend to think that it is. It's the end of Reconstruction. It's the, you know, establishment of white home rule in the south after some possibilities for change during Reconstruction. But Adams himself organizes the colonization council in 1874 while he's still involved in electoral politics. I mean, that's right. He says he hasn't lost all hope. And I think, you know, one of the questions is what do we know about what was circulating in various black communities, about the prospects of leaving? I know when I was searching Henry Adams in the American Colonization Society, you know, suddenly I found all this stuff from really early on and the ability of black communities to have contact with the American Colonization Society. And so the idea of moving as one political alternative, I think, was out there very early. And I think what is important for him as a leader, and I think all grassroots leaders, is they're attentive to what's going on on the ground, and they're able to organize and articulate what's going on on the ground. So they're not the ones who come up with the Ideas, but they're the ones who, you know, make the ideas. Turn them into some kind of movement.

[Moderator]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, Kidada, can you talk a little bit about. I mean, people might not know about the exodus movement and the different facets of it, and you know, what Henry Adams kind of role in it was.

[Kidada Williams]

So before we get to the. Before we get to the exodusters, I think it's important to understand that people are already moving, right? You've got a lot of people who are leaving farms and plantations, and the only way for them to. Is, you know, the only way for them to succeed is to go from one place to the one place to the next. But what we also see is that a lot of landowners who are attacked by the Klan and they are picking up stakes and they're leaving these rural communities and they're already migrating to the cities. So you think about the greater. What we would today recognize as the greater Atlanta area or metro Atlanta area. You've got people who are coming in from the far out counties, moving into cities like Atlanta and are doing the same thing in Jackson, et cetera. So they're already moving. I think that's one of the things to consider. They're just moving from the most rural places of some of the burgeon towns in the South. But with the exodusters in particular, they are, you know, they. Some of them have already left communities, rural communities, and, you know, pulled up stakes in their land or been driven off their land. And they're looking for opportunities where they can feel secure. And so for them, that security comes from leaving the south and going to Kansas, going far west to California, which people. People are doing at this time period. There are already populations in Oklahoma, but people are leaving the deep south and they're going to places like Oklahoma, too. But what we see in 1879 and 1880 is this large number of people, several thousand people move, pack up and move. And of course, for the people who've been exploiting their labor, seeing these people pack up and move, seeing the exploitable labor packing up to leave, sends a kind of shockwave through the ruling class of some of the South. And so the fact that people are still trying to leave is alarming. And what we see in some communities is the ruling class, they try to organize, to try to stop and intimidate people from leaving, right? And so they want to keep them there as exploitable labor. They recognize what labor autonomy they might enjoy if they leave the South. And so you do have these large numbers of people who are organized and trying to leave. And some people are really desperate to get out. They're willing to leave with the clothes on their backs. And so they are, in some cases, showing up. And there are tensions within the planning and the execution of the plans, et cetera. And so some people are not necessarily prepared to get on their feet. And then there are epidemics that sort of take off in these communities for people who are moving from one location to the next to the next. And so it creates a large political crisis. But what we also see is that in these receiving communities, black people who are already there start to mobilize their resources to provide help to the people who've packed up and just sort of left with the clothes on their backs. And so when we think about the exodusters, we've got to think about the people who are making planned moves with cash on hand to buy their own homesteads in the new location, and those who are just fed up and desperate to leave and only leave for the clothes on their backs, because that's what they can get away with. You've got a combination.

[Stephen Hahn]

I'm sorry to interrupt.

[Kidada Williams]

Go ahead. I'm done.

[Stephen Hahn]

I was just to say that, you know, you raised a number of really, really important points. Sometimes we think that in the post emancipation period that the repression just ends up leaving everybody in place. And in point of fact, as Kidada suggested you, the post Civil war period is one that sees an enormous amount of population movement. Some of the most important is from the southeast to what is called the Southwest. Before the civil war, say, the Mississippi delta was hardly populated. And this is true for much of the Mississippi Valley. And then it changes. And the interest you can kind of see. I remember in reading the American colonization society papers, I mean, there are people who are writing in every year and they're talking about a. Their interest in going and the incredible struggle. I mean, they have to make it to a port. They have to make it there at the time that the ship is going to leave. They have to get their resources together. And you just see it's really heartbreaking to see because they have a pretty good understanding of where they're going, but it's a question of how you get there.

[Moderator]

Well, you mentioned. You both mentioned the fact that this, the emigration, the exodus of people actually created a kind of crisis, as you said. And clearly the senate investigating committee is part of an attempt to respond to that. And so I guess we should move to Act 4, which is just a little bit about the committee. I mean, kidadi, you feel comfortable reading that Final excerpt, which just shows a little bit about some of the hostile questioning from the Democratic side.

[Kidada Williams]

Sure. Question from a member of the Democratic majority, how do you account for the fact that your friends, the Republican Party. I do not speak disrespectfully that your friends here, and they are your friends, no doubt, have taken no steps under the Constitution to protect your people. If your condition is what you have described it to be and you have made known your appeal, how do you account for that and what do you think of that?

[Moderator]

So you talked about this a little bit, but let's just go again and say, ask again, what did this investigation hope to achieve? Like, what's the point of it? Like, you know, I mean, Steve, you want to take the first shot at that?

[Stephen Hahn]

Well, I. Again, I think it's, you know, some of the interests are different, depending on the political parties, but it was a response to what was recognized as an unusually substantial movement underway of people who are not only going to, you know, depart the Southern states, but we're looking to places like Kansas to relocate. And so that, I think, is, you know, it's less Liberia that does come up in, you know, the testimonies than it is, you know, what would it mean if all these folks are moving to Kansas and what would happen when they get there? And I. I think there's a general response to that, that there's a need to figure out so that the Democrats end up saying, well, you know, it seems to us that everything is kind of, you know, peachy down in the south. And the Republicans, who have very different view, nonetheless don't really offer up any policy or program to address these, except to be aware of the extremely difficult circumstances under which formerly enslaved people find themselves and some interest in helping to improve that. But, no, there had been, you know, William Windham, who was on the committee, had put something on the table about Western lands, but that didn't really go anywhere. So they don't come up. I mean, you know, as far as I know, know, that doesn't happen. But it certainly does make more public the kind of, you know, concerns and aspirations that black people in the south have.

[Moderator]

Yeah, I mean, Kidada, what impact do you think Adams's testimony had on the committee or on the country? I mean, is there anybody.

[Kidada Williams]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Before I answer that, I want to circle back a little bit to Steve's answer to the question. Question and Steve's answer. I think we have to acknowledge that this question is not asked in good faith. Right. Because it doesn't acknowledge the reality that a lot of the former, this is, and this is the point of Adam's testimony, a lot of the former enslaving class and those who wanted to be enslavers are now back in power not only in the Southern states, but also in Congress. And so by this point, there is little, increasingly little for Republicans to do. And so I feel like the question doesn't even, the question doesn't really acknowledge that. It doesn't acknowledge the extent to which Democrats have been actively and aggressively facilitating the violence and the freedom denying enterprise. And so I think when we answer, when we consider these questions, we have to recognize that the answers or the, that the questions that they're asking are not in good faith. Right. In Henry Adams and other witnesses who testify at these and other congressional investigations, they know these questions are not in good faith. And so you see their answers try to navigate that reality. And so what was your question for me about?

[Moderator]

Okay, well, just, I mean, what do we know about what impact at the time Adams's testimony had? I mean, either on the committee or on the country or on, I mean, do we know anything about that?

[Kidada Williams]

I think what we know is that from the majority report, which is written by the Democrats, the conservatives, is that from their position, there's nothing to see here. Right. You know, you've got, you've got these agitators, you know, who've come in and stirred people up. Otherwise everything is hunky dory and fine. What you see from the, the Republicans is a real acknowledgment of, real acknowledgement of all of the information that witnesses like Adams have provided the committee to understand the extent to which the violence is undermining not only economic freedom in the south, black economic freedom in the south, but also the democratic process. And so I think that it's less significant for the time period. Adams's testimony is less significant for the time period than it is for the sort of larger arc of the history. As a result of his testimony, African Americans had, and we as researchers and as history curious people have, and a really important document about the register, about the reality of Reconstruction on the ground. And so I think that people could whistle past his testimony if they wanted to. But historically it becomes even more important when we try, when those of us who try to understand this era are able to go back to it and see these are the people he's in community with. These are what all of these people are doing. This is the extent to which they're being denied their freedom. And so it is a really important. It's a really important document historically, and it's not to minimize its significance for the time period. But I think that what we've been able to do with the document, what it has taught those of us who are genuinely curious and interested in what happened during this period and in people like Henry Adams, it is a precious gem.

[Moderator]

Thank you. Yeah, great answer. Before we move on, I just want to acknowledge that in the audience is the historian Nell Painter, whose book Exodusters is an important contribution to this.

[Stephen Hahn]

He's the pioneer, building on her work.

[Moderator]

So what do we know about what happened to Henry Adams after he testified? Like, what do we know about his life after this? After this point?

[Stephen Hahn]

I don't think we know very much. We do know that he's not going back to Shreveport. He. You know, I think he. The last we know of him, he's in New Orleans. He's working in New Orleans. And he has some communications. I think he still has some communications maybe with the American Colonization Society into the early 1880s, but I think 1884 is about the last we know of him. And we don't. I mean, as far as I know, we don't know what happened to him after that.

[Moderator]

Yeah, yeah. It's a. It's a sad story anyway. And we know how dangerous.

[Stephen Hahn]

You know something about this?

[Kidada Williams]

No, but what I. What I do know is that the movement that clearly inspired him did not die.

[Stephen Hahn]

Yeah.

[Kidada Williams]

Because we still see, you know, there. You know, there is an exodus. There is an ongoing exodus from the south to the West. People are still going to Liberia and to other places. And so this investment in freedom, in black freedom, political freedom, economic freedom, is something that continues. It's part. You know, you can see what I think is very clear is those of us who sort of consider the freedom struggle, you know, can recognize a person like Henry Adams and all of the people operating around him, trying to move the direction or move the needle in the direction of freedom.

[Stephen Hahn]

Yeah, you know, I do. I think that's. That's just right. And, you know, it gives us a, you know, a grounded sense of an intellectual history that we tend to become aware of at a higher level when we might talk about Douglass and Washington and Du Bois and so on. And I think what Henry Adams enables us to see is that this emerges from the ground and that people like him play a really important role in making this, enabling more people to understand this, putting people who believe this way or thinking about this, raising questions in touch with each other, to know that there are other people there and that it's part of an ongoing struggle and discourse about the black future in the United States and how to think about it. And so, so, you know, he's just one of the great, I think, so called organic intellectuals and is giving us an opportunity to see how this emerges. I mean, that's what's so remarkable about the testimony. He really takes us through, you know, an educational process by which he gains knowledge, figures out how to learn more, and then is thinking very hard about what to do with that. And you know, I think it's just a really remarkable document for that and for other reasons.

[Moderator]

I think this is a good point just to go to some other audience questions. So Moira Egan from the Bronx asks, how did you first discover this text? So I want to hear both your stories about, about that. And Caridwin Holt from Mountain View, Arkansas says, in all my reading this, this book is the first time I've ever heard of Henry Adams. Was he always there, but just not in well known publications. So two questions about discovery, like why have people even who know a lot about history not been aware of Henry Adams, do you think? And then how did you yourselves, as scholars discover Henry Adams? Kidada, do you want to go first?

[Kidada Williams]

Sure, I'll go. I discovered Henry Adams in Nell Painter's amazing book. Right. You know, I was a graduate student reading and you know, going like, who is Henry? You know, who is this man? And you know, how does she know all of this about him? And so that inspired me to want to read the, read his congressional testimony myself and to learn more about him.

[Stephen Hahn]

Steve, how did you, you know, exactly the same way I found out about Henry Adams through the work of Nell Painter. I was a graduate student. I was may. I don't know if I was preparing for my exams or, you know, this was just necessary reading because there's really nothing else, you know, that took black political life in the post emancipation period as seriously and as fully as that. And I, I had never heard of him. And all of a sudden this person really comes to life. And you know, subsequently when I, you know, started working on, you know, a book on African American politics, it was a kind of springboard. You know, that was definitely one of the things that you had to pursue, that there was this great material out there. And for me, you know, following Henri Adams and trying to find out as much as I could got me into a lot of other sources, some of which, you know, Nell had already been in. So I, and, and the larger question is there are so many. You know, I teach a course called American History Makers you probably never heard of. And, you know, I think it's really important to recognize that there are all these really interesting and consequential people who, you know, because of the way in which popular history is often represented, you know, don't get very much attention. We're interested in big leaders, but we're not necessarily interested in the people who did the very difficult work on the ground. And it's hard to think of anyone who did more difficult work than Henry Adams did.

[Kidada Williams]

And I just want to say, for those in the audience, you should know that Dr. Painter's book is called the Exoduster Serves.

[Moderator]

Thank you. Okay. There are a couple questions that are curious about the text, the document itself and its history. Jay Jacoby from New York says, has this document been published previously? And Kerry Rose Clark. No, no, I'm sorry, excuse me. Karen Brops from Chicago says, who holds the original papers of this author. So maybe you could just talk about a little bit about, you know, where this text comes from, you know, and it's. And its first publication, and maybe a little bit about also where Adams's papers are and what they consist of. I don't know. Who wants. Steve, do you want to. You want to.

[Stephen Hahn]

Well, they were published in the Congressional Record. And again, one of the things that's so significant about this is that there are so many people, black and white and from many different backgrounds, who in Congressional investigations, certainly over the 19th century, that I'm aware of, but way beyond that, who emerge as historical actors in these documents and that they are available to us in way. That was dubois's whole point about black Reconstruction and his critique of what was then the Dunning School. And he said, it's all there in the National Archives. And he was talking about mostly the print record. And that's true. It really is, in terms of papers. He has correspondence, you know, with a number of people, including, you know, he signs on petitions to Hayes and to Grant. As far as I know. I don't know if there's a collection, but Nell may. But I don't know about that.

[Moderator]

Thank you. Okay, here's a question from Kerry Rose Clark from Nashville. She asks, have black Americans achieved. Make themselves a name and a nation? And what does that look like? And, you know, I guess you can interpret that question however you want. I'm not sure if it's a question about black nationalism and about it that. That very important strain in American history or Kidada. You have thoughts about that?

[Kidada Williams]

I Think what we see is that what black Americans did and have continued to do is to form their own nation within the larger nation and to build, to sort of continue the black freedom project within those black spaces. There's the phrase that Earl Lewis came up with in terms of turning segregation into congregation. So what people do is they take advantage of their exclusion from other spaces and even their disinterest. Because part of what Henry Adams and other people's testimony is that they don't necessarily want to be in proximity to white people when they're petitioning, when they're petitioning the President, when they're petitioning Grant, when they're petitioning Hayes, they're petitioning for land and states on their own right. Because they don't believe that proximity to white people, they don't believe that white people are somehow magical. Slavery has taught them that that's not the case. And so what they want is to be left alone, to be able to work, to be able to exercise self determination in communities where they are the majority, majority. That's what they want. And that has been part of the larger sort of, you know, black radical tradition. If we want to sort of use that language dating back to the slave ships. What they want is to be free and equal and secure and you know, and that security being secure in their rights as American citizens, in their freedoms and being able to enjoy their liberties as American citizens. And so what they have done one is to focus on that in the spaces and in opportunities wherever they have. And that is something that still continues up into the present day.

[Stephen Hahn]

I think that, you know, it reminds me of the meeting between General Sherman and the 20 ministers in January 1865, which leads to him issuing field order number 15. But he basically says, you know, what do you want? And the short version of it is we want land and we want to cultivate it on our own because they know what it's like to live among white people and they recognize that this is a very dangerous proposition. And so, you know, what you see in Adams is kind of taking this idea and obviously it's all over the place. And you see this language that I know if you look at the Colonization Society papers and the letters that come in, you can see that language too. To make ourselves a race and a nation and a people and to understand how getting the opportunity for self governance, you know, is really, really important. And I think this has often been neglected. And I'm sure we're going to hear a lot of things in the 250th anniversary when they make any attempt to incorporate the experience of African Americans into American history, that it has to do with assimil and Henry Adams reminds us that, you know, they've learned a lot and they learned a lot under slavery and they learned a lot in the post emancipation period. And that's not what they learned.

[Moderator]

Yeah. And speaking of that point, because this is Library of America, I can't help myself ask this as the last question. The Charles Sperling from New York, York asks, did Henry Adams, author of Democracy, know of his namesake's testimony? And I actually wanted to broaden that question and say that, you know, that these two Henry Adamses were almost exact contemporaries. Right. They were born five years apart. We don't know when Henry Adams, this Henry Adams died. But what's interesting to me, I guess about their, one thing that's interesting to me about their text is that, you know, they're both stories of, of the struggle of kind of trying to get agency over these powerful forces and forces that ultimately prove to be overwhelming. I mean, obviously there are different kinds of forces in these two books. And I guess my question about. And ultimately they fail, I guess you could say, in some sense. I mean, that's certainly the Brahmin Adams judgment on himself. So I guess my last question is, you know, are these, is this a story of failure? I mean, or is that finally, is that how we have to judge both this Henry Adams and the Brahmin Henry Adams? Or is there a different way that we judge these two men and these two writers?

[Kidada Williams]

Well, I'll go. I wouldn't say that, I wouldn't say that it was a failure. I'll say that it was part of a larger lesson because Henry Adams was fighting for freedom for his people that he knew he might not live to see, that he might not live to enjoy. And that is historically part of black Americans pursuit of freedom, recognition. They're fighting for something bigger than themselves. And that's something that he was willing to do. Now obviously he wants to be able to partake in freedom, but what he does is, I think, help build out that foundation from that generation of people who live through Reconstruction for what freedom could, could still potentially be like, you know, because they have a taste of that during Reconstruction and we know that reconstruction is overthrown and abandoned. But people like Henry Adams keep the dream alive. And what we see in his testimony, what we see in all of the people that he interacts with, is that he is not alone in thinking that he's not alone in holding out hope for the possibilities of justice and passing that hope and lessons from his struggles onto the next generation.

[Stephen Hahn]

When I wrote a chapter on grassroots immigrationism in the Nation under Our Feet, I called it the Education of Henry Adams, you know, in part to suggest, you know, the how substantial his contribution and his education really were. You know, I think we oftentimes ask, is Reconstruction a failure or a success? And I'm not sure that's the right question. And I think Henry Adams is, I mean, look, he thought he was going to be killed on numerous occasions. And I have to confess, after, you know, you read his testimony, you think how the hell did he manage not to get killed? And maybe in the end he he did. But I do think that in some ways his experience shows why thinking about Reconstruction as you know, we have to answer that question is that it may not be help us understand really what comes out of this, which is a very, very multifaceted politics and agendas and struggles that will define the rest of of American history. And thanks.

[Moderator]

Thank you so much for a really terrific, fascinating hour. You've been listening to Steve Hahn and Kidate Williams discuss the testimony of Henry Adams, Friedman Hope, Terror and Exodus in the Post Civil War south, just published by Library of America with an introduction by Stephen Hahn. On Tuesday, June 2, LOA Live welcomes David Bromwich, Mark Edmondson and Karen Carbiner for a conversation inspired by Walt Whitman on democracy, a new book from Library of America edited and introduced by David Bromwich. It'll be an exciting and timely programming and I hope you'll join us. Also in June, acclaimed historian Annette Gordon Reed launches Reading America, a new online series from Library of America with a master class on the Declaration of Independence and the response to by Black minuteman and Minister Lemuel Haynes. I should say a future session of that series of seminars includes nell Painter on July 28th teaching a Master class on Ralph Waldo Emerson and Sojourner Troup. Other guests include Joanne Freeman, Colm Tobin, Joshua Cohen, Namwali Serpell and others teaching their own classes in LOA's online classroom on works and writers they feel are especially resonant today. If you're watching this program, you can use the coupon code Early Bird reading to earn 15% off tickets at checkout on Eventbrite or scan the QR code on your screen now through May 15th. Details about these and other upcoming LOA Live events and LOA online courses can be found on our website loa.org where you'll also find information about the Henry Adams and Walt Whitman volumes with links to purchase those and other editions of Great American Writing. You'll also find recordings of tonight's and previous LOA Live programs. Warm thanks to our distinguished panelists tonight for a really a wonderful conversation. Thank you for making it and thank you and have a great evening, everybody.