Joseph Adkins (February 5, 1815 – May 10, 1869) was a minister and state senator in Georgia during the Reconstruction Era after the American Civil War.
[citation needed] He supported civil rights for African Americans and reported racially motivated violence by the Ku Klux Klan.
[citation needed] Violence continued into 1869,[2] and he led a delegation to Washington, D.C. to request military support in Georgia for safety of its citizens.
[citation needed] Although he was warned that White supremacists were targeting him and that he was in danger, Adkins travelled from Washington, D.C. to his home to see his family and attend to personal affairs.
Stephen Ward Angell reported that Ayer and Adkins had been "brutally slaughtered because they dared to be Republicans, and possessed such an amount of integrity that they defied both bribes and threats.