Greene County now has its first historical marker dedicated to an African American who served as one of the first Black legislators elected to the Georgia General Assembly.
A small group gathered outside of the Greene County Courthouse on Sunday to honor former state Rep. Abram Colby, who served the county after the Civil War.
“There is nothing regarding our history and our heritage… this is the first one because I believe these kind of things are important because we’re not going to be here all the time to tell the story,” said Mamie Hillman, founder of the Greene County African American Museum.
She said she and her team worked alongside the Georgia Historical Society to get an official marker for Colby. The community-based application for the marker was officially approved last fall, fundraising $2,500 for the effort.
“Can you imagine? It has taken more than 157 years to acknowledge and honor these men. And he’s the first one to have a historical marker,” she said.
Colby was a member of the “Original 33,” the first group of Black legislators to serve under the Gold Dome back in 1868. However, according to New York-based researcher Greer Brigham, his story was far from easy to trace.
“If you read histories of Greene County, Georgia, his story is either written out or it’s filled with lies. I think the reason for that is how powerful the story is and the danger of his example of this guy who believed in this expansive view of freedom, not just the Emancipation Proclamation, but economic opportunity, educational opportunity, political opportunity,” Brigham said.
Brigham said the placement of the marker, at a front corner of the courthouse’s lawn, is the best location because its “the exact spot where he led the freed people to cast their ballots in 1868.”
Later that same year, the Original 33 were expelled from the General Assembly because of their race. Political tension and violence arose around whether Black men could hold office despite having the right to vote.
Archives show Colby was racially attacked in 1869 for his advocacy of Black civil rights and political inclusion. Colby was also violently bribed to not recampaign following “White v. Clements” case, ruling that African Americans have a right to hold office.
The marker acknowledges his plight and his successes, including his 1871 federal court testimony on political violence by the Ku Klux Klan.
Descendant of Abram Colby, Pam Colby, sits beside researcher Greer Brigham, moments ahead of the debut of the historical marker in her ancestor’s honor. (DorMiya Vance/WABE)
“[The Klansmen] broke my door open, took me out of bed, took me to the woods and whipped me three hours or more and left me for dead. They said to me, ‘Do you think you will ever vote another damned Radical ticket?’ I said, ‘If there was an election tomorrow, I would vote the Radical ticket.’ They set in and whipped me a thousand licks more, with sticks and straps that had buckles on the ends of them,” Colby testified in 1869.
And over 150 years later, Pam Colby believes her ancestor’s story is finally getting the respect it deserves.
“He was so selfless, and literally, he sacrificed himself because he believed in freedom. He believed in rights for everyone. So to get to this point all of these years later and then to see it in person, it was overwhelming, really,” Colby said.
“It’s an acknowledgement that he existed and what he did mattered. It’s not something that could be reburied, because his story was buried,” Colby added.
