"The Southern Homestead Act of 1866 did make 80-acre plots in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, and Mississippi available free of cost to heads of households, black and white, and several thousand black men were able to take advantage of this program.

Under the urging of a black activist named Pap Singleton, 20,000 to 40,000 so-called Exodusters (from the biblical book of Exodus) migrated to Kansas in 1879 seeking land made available under the 1862 Homestead Act.

Thousands of other blacks moved west to establish farms and settlements. But most blacks who sought to own their own farms were thwarted, not only by a lack of government help, but also by hostile whites who refused to sell them land even if they were able to meet the purchase price."