Junius G. Groves (1859 – 1925) was perhaps the most successful black farmer and is referred to as the “potato king of the world.” Groves was born a slave in Green County, Kentucky in 1859. He was made free by the proclamation of Abraham Lincoln. In 1879, he was part of the “Kansas Exodus” black people who migrated from the South to Kansas. There were so many “Kansas Exodusters” that labor was cheap and jobs were hard to find. Groves found employment on a farm at forty cents a day.
Later his employer offered him a portion of land to cultivate on shares of nine acres. Groves would plant, cultivate, and harvest crop for the price of one third of the harvest. As he and his wife worked hard, they earned money for a milk cow and money saved for planting another crop. By the third year, Groves and his wife rented sixty-six acres of good farmland near Edwardsville, Kansas, planted potatoes, raised pigs and fowls, sold milk and butter. By 1884, they bought their own farm of eighty acres and continued to prosper. They bought the fourth farm then the fifth farm and built a beautiful home at a cost of $5,000. They had eleven children, three girls and eight boys. Two girls and one boy went to Kansas Agricultural College.
Why was Groves called “the potato king?” In one year alone produced 721,500 bushels of white potatoes, averaging 245 bushels to the acre. This amount of potatoes was 121,500 bushels more than any other individual grower in the world had, at that time.
In speaking of what they have been able to accomplish, Mr. Groves said in a very modest way, “I think that our success shows that a Negro can and will make his way if given a chance. If we could start with but seventy-five cents and succeed as we have, other people of our race can do the same thing.” (The Negro in Business by Booker T. Washington, published 1907)