Adam Simpson Green graduated from Colby in 1887. Although another African American man, Jonas H. Townsend, was a member of the class of 1849, Green was the first African American man to graduate.

Green came to Colby from Aberdeen, Mississippi in his late twenties. He wrote for the Colby Echo, including a series on the political and moral status of African Americans at the time. According to the Oracle, his favorite exclamation was "by the bye."

After Colby, Green moved around a great deal. His first job was a teaching position in Texas. In 1893, he graduated from Newton and went to preach in Minnesota. Two years later he moved to Kansas to teach in Bible Institute Instruction. In 1896, Green became assistant instructor in the Divinity department of the Western Baptist College at Macon, Missouri. Later reports suggest he was a pastor of the Zion Baptist Church at Turo, Nova Scotia, resigning in 1905 and moving to New Orleans.

Green continued to be an avid writer following his time at Colby, and he published a poem titled "The Negro's Past, Present & Future" for the 24th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamtion in 1889. The poem reflects on many historical figures, including this passage on Toussaint L'Ouverture:

"Sleep calmly in thy dungeon tomb,
Beneath Besancon's alien sky,
Dark Haytian! - for the time shall come,
Yea, even now is nigh,
When everywhere thy name shall be
Redeemed from color's infamy;
And men shall learn to speak of thee
As one of earth's great spirits, born
In Servitude, and nursed in Scorn,
Casting aside the weary weight
And fetters of its low estate,
In that strong majesty of soul
Which knows no color, tongue or clime,
Which still hath spurned the base control
Of tyrants through all time."

The poem's final stanza reads:

"He is rising! rising! rising!
Upward! Upward!! See him go!!!
Growing better, growing wiser,
Till he perfect bliss shall know."

Photo courtesy of Colby Special Collections. Additional research by Corie Washow.