Please join us for the dedication of a new Georgia historical a marker about Representative Abram Colby.
The dedication is public and will take place on Sunday, April 26, at 3:00 p.m., on the lawn of the Greene County Court House at 113 N. Main Street in Greensboro. Street parking is available around the court house and in downtown Greensboro.
The historical marker reads:
Representative Abram Colby (c.1820-1872)
African-American leader Abram Colby represented Greene County’s Black community following emancipation. Under the US Southern Homestead Act (1866), Colby unsuccessfully applied for land in Arkansas to relocate Greene County African-American citizens. Colby later advocated for Black education and fair labor contracts. Elected a Republican state representative in 1868, Colby and his fellow Black legislators were expelled because of their race. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) targeted Republicans who supported Reconstruction and assaulted Colby in a near-fatal attack. In White v. Clements (1869), the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed African Americans’ right to hold political office, reinstating Colby’s seat. In 1871 Colby testified about the KKK’s political terrorism in the South before a federal congressional committee, leading to the prosecution of KKK members and shifting public perception. Colby was targeted until his death in 1872.
Erected by the Georgia Historical Society and the Greene County African American Museum