Senate Investigates Exoduster Migration, Hears Violence Testimony

The U.S. Senate formed a select committee in 1880 to investigate the Exoduster migration, hearing testimony from Black migrants about conditions in the South. Witnesses described being unable to exercise voting rights, receiving no justice from courts for violence against them, being cheated of wages under debt peonage arrangements, and facing retaliatory violence for owning property. Southern Democrats on the committee disputed the testimony and attributed migration to agitators rather than vio