mar 23, 1879 - Exodusters

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In 1879, a mass migration of African Americans known as the Exodusters were leaving the south lead by abolitionist Benjamin “Pap” Singleton and settled in Kansas. The Exodusters that choose to live in the Northeast region resided along the lower stretches of the Jersey Creek and in the vicinity of 3rd street north of Everett Ave.

Exodus refugees were drawn to Juniper (Now Juniper Gardens), Rattlebone Hollow, "The Third Ward", Hogg Town, and Quindaro. These settlements were to become not only a heart for the growing African American community in Kansas City Kansas, but also the target of the majority of destruction that occurred during the period of urban renewal in the 1960's, which today would be called environmental racism.

In the late 1870’s, thousands of Exodusters came through Wyandotte County by way of Mississippi and Louisiana arriving March 23, 1879 on the steamship, Fannie Lewis.
In the late nineteenth century, Attorney I.F. Bradley wrote an article titled, “It Happened in Wyandotte.” He recalled: “I was a bareheaded, barefooted, sparsely clad youngster at Cambridge, Missouri, a small but important shipping point on the Missouri River, on April 9, 1879, when the Fannie Lewis, a majestic side wheel steamer, docked at that place. She was towing a couple of barges upon which was the largest number of refugees that came at any one time. I begged mother to let me go down in the woods where she landed, and went aboard of her, and heard those mothers and fathers sing and pray and tell some of the stories of that from which they had fled.”
“All of the refugees did not come on the Fannie Lewis, but the largest portion did. Two other steamers, the Grand Tower and the Durfee, brought cargoes and others later brought small numbers. They were landed on the low lands south of Jersey Creek and the location was later called Juniper Bottoms. They brought with them the idea of a colony and had their spiritual advisor in the person of Curtis Pollard.”
“The refugees squatted on the river bank and built their shacks in irregular form, out of whatever could be pieced together. Industry absorbed them and they gradually bought or built homes in other parts of the city.” (Reasons To Persist, Robinson)
Pap Singleton was bringing Exodusters from Tennessee and Kentucky. In about two years, ten thousand persons arrived in Wyandotte. The Exodusters were assisted by the African American and White Churches. Those who stayed in Wyandotte were located along the “lower reaches” of Jersey Creek and in a district east of 3rd Street and north of Everett Avenue. (Roots)

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