Abram Colby

Abram Colby was an American slave and politician who served in the Georgia House of Representatives during the Reconstruction era. A resident of Greene County, Georgia, Colby was the son of an enslaved woman and a white planter. He was free for fifteen years prior to emancipation. He was an early organizer of freed slaves. Colby and minister Henry McNeal Turner helped form a chapter of the American Equal Rights Association. Colby was known for eloquent oratory and represented Greene County in 1865 at a freeman's convention. A Radical Republican, Colby was first elected in 1866. In 1868, he was bribed $7,500 by the Ku Klux Klan not to seek re-election, but refused to do so. In October 29th, 1869, he was taken from his bed and beaten by the Ku Klux Klan in front of his family. During his whipping he was asked, "Do you think you will ever vote another damned Radical ticket." He replied, "If there was an election tomorrow, I would vote the Radical ticket." After his remark, the men continued to beat him. Faced with debilitating injury, he was unable to work and did not seek re-election. The injury was so extensive Colby was recorded saying in his testimony during the Joint Select Committee Report "They broke something inside of me, and the doctor has been attending to me for more than a year. Sometimes I cannot get up and down off my bed, and my left hand is not of much use to me.". In 1872, he was called before a joint U.S. House and Senate committee investigating reports of Southern violence.