Adams, a former commander of African American troops, argued that Reconstruction policy was cruel for one reason and one reason only. It gave equal rights to African Americans. He agreed with the white supremacists. Two years later, Adams would return to Virginia to give a speech called “The Solid South and the Afro-American Race Problem.” His racist speech in Lexington was a mere warm-up for the one in Richmond. First calling African Americans “a distinct alien element in the body politic,” he went even further by stating the country’s greatest problem was “the unhappy presence of Africans.”
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