Henry Adams

Henry Adams (1843–?) was a formerly enslaved man who led what has been considered Louisiana's first civil rights campaign, which promoted voting rights for former slaves and advocated for African Americans to migrate from the South.

Biography Adams was born into slavery as Henry Houston in Newton County, Georgia, on March 16, 1843. In 1850, Adams' owner moved his plantation to DeSoto Parish, Louisiana. Adams and his family were freed by their owner on May 26, 1865, when Shreveport, Louisiana, surrendered to Union forces. After the Civil War ended, Adams worked as a drayman in Shreveport and also served in the army from 1866–1869. Support for these objectives began to decrease and after receiving threats from Whites, Adams moved to New Orleans in December 1878. In 1880, Adams travelled to Washington, D.C. to testify before a Senate special committee investigating "Negro Exodus from the Southern States", blaming the causes of the African American exodus from the South on anti-Black terror. After the disappointing results of the migration to Kansas, Adams began supporting emigration to Liberia, which had been founded in 1824 by the American Colonization Society. Nothing is known of Adams after 1884 when the Colonization Council largely ceased to exist, although it is possible that Adams travelled to Liberia.