Transcript History of Racism and Anti-Racist Activism in Fayette County, KY By Randolph Hollingsworth, Ph.D. University of Kentucky RCCW Fayette Co.

History of Racism and
Anti-Racist Activism
in Fayette County, KY
By Randolph Hollingsworth, Ph.D.
University of Kentucky
RCCW Fayette Co. Training, Nov/Dec 2014
18th Century Culture Clash
Native Americans
Euro- & African-Americans
VA recognizes Town of
Lexington in 1782
1798
First Census
• 1,475 in town
of Lexington
• 25% identified
as “Negroes”
• 772 in Fayette
County
Anti-racist vs.
Anti-slavery Activists
• David Rice (Presbyterian) “Slavery
Inconsistent with Justice and Good
Policy” 1792
• 1790 Peter Duerett & (never named) wife
founded First African Baptist Church with
Rolla Blue, William Gist, Solomon Walker,
James Pollock, including a free school
• Kentucky Abolition Society and Kentucky
Colonization Society
American Colonization Society:
“The Society for the Colonization of Free
People of Color of America” founded 1817
Institutionalizing White Supremacy
Black Codes
• 1792 ban on interracial
marriage
• 1798 pass law, patrollers
fill slave jails in Lexington
• Migration laws against
free blacks
• Restrictions on retail for
food or liquor
• 1811 white suffrage only
• Vagrancy laws enforce
selling or leasing out any
people of color
Whites-only Public Resources
• Guilty before proven
innocent – using police to
halt any mass meetings,
whip recalcitrant slaves
• KY’s Non-Importation Act
1833-49 ends rapid rise in
black population in KY but
enriched slave-owners
• Taxes for “common law”
schools, poorhouses,
orphanages = whites only
KY Slavery = Task System
Bonded Labor or Sold South
Leg irons, handcuffs;
Edward Stone’s Coffle Gang
heading for transport
Wages for Extra Labor
Mr Wickliff Sam Broke Three
hundred and 42 pounds of
Hemp over 100 pounds a
day and you can allow him
what you please for a Task
Yours
26th April 1846 G.H. Wallace
Private Auctions, Slave Leasing
Slave Jail owned by Lewis C. Robards (W. Short Street)
For men to view or use slaves in sex trade in private
Anti-slavery, Pro-slavery
supported by religious
dogma and science
• Cassius M. Clay
• Henry Clay
• Abraham & Mary
Todd Lincoln
• Rev. Robert J.
Breckinridge
• Polly Todd Wickliffe
• Robert
Wickliffe
• Thomas R.
Marshall
“One-Drop Rule”
Any person with even one ancestor of sub-Saharan
African ancestry was considered to be black (invisible
blackness)
Alfred F. Russell was a slave in
Lexington KY - immigrated to
Liberia in 1833 with his mother
Amelie “Milly” Crawford. They
were educated and freed by
Polly Todd Russell Wickliffe
10th President of Liberia, 1883-84
Lexington Slavery Protected
by Military during Civil War
“Reconstruction”
Amendments to the
Constitution
• 13: abolish slavery
• 14: citizenship defined
• 15: protection of
voting rights for men
NOT fully realized until
Civil Rights Act 1964 and
Voting Rights Act 1965
1865/66: KY
legislature rejects
ratification of 13th
& 14th
Amendments
1976: KY Senator Georgia
Powers and Rep. Mae Street
Kidd lead effort to ratify the
two amendments in KY
Post-CW Boom & Rise of
Jim Crow laws
Lexington Colored Agricultural
and Mechanical Association, 1869
1866/67 Lexington
hosts 2 Black
Conventions: protest
separate coach law,
anti-voting tactics
and violence,
testimony in courts,
lack of public support
for schools & streets in
Black neighborhoods,
race disparities in
poor/vagrant
auctions
Separatism of Lexington’s
Club Women
• Kentucky Federation of Women’s
Clubs 1894 is for whites only
• E. Belle Mitchell Jackson educator
at Camp Nelson also vocational
training for orphans relied on selfhelp principles of Booker T. Washington 1894
• Lizzie Fouse and KY Federation of Colored
Women, Phyllis Wheatley branch of YWCA,
Women’s Improvement Club and Day Nursery
• Dr. Mary E. Britton, orator and writer for equal
rights and anti-lynching, is also first Black to be
licensed as a doctor in Lexington
Kentucky & Woman Suffrage
• 1st statewide woman suffrage law in
new nation - 1838 KY rural femmes sole
• 1st time gender is federal condition for
suffrage - 14th Amendment 1868
• Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado women
enfranchised by 1893
• 1891KY’s new constitution (its 4th) gives
legislature power to extend only partial
suffrage to women statewide
October 1901 Lexington Women
Voter Registration, by Party
Independent,
136
Source:
Lexington
Leader,
Morning
Democrat,
Lexington
Herald
(October 2,
1901)
Democrat, 634
Republican,
1,986
October 1901 Lexington Women
Voter Registration, by Race
White,
775
Source:
Morning
Herald
(October 2,
1901)
Black,
1,883
8,926
Total Registration of
voters for Lexington
School Board, Oct 1901
vs.
4,570
Total Votes cast, Nov 5
difference = ~50%
• 1899 difference = 30%
• 1897 difference = 7%
Lexington
School Board
Voter
Registrants
vs. Election
Returns
October vs.
November
1901
From Segregation to
Desegregation after WW2
• Segregated housing in
Lexington enforced by
stipulations on deeds
• Separate Coach Law 1892
• Day Law 1904 – Lyman T.
Johnson and Univ of KY law
school, 1949
• Will Lockett’s rape trial
and martial law 1920
• Racing shifts from Black
jockeys & trainers to
whites only with
Irish “lads in stables
KY Association track closes
in 1933
Blacks and Lexington’s
Horseracing Industry
(2nd
Kentucky Association Track
oldest in the nation)
a group of trainers near Race Street in1880s
Construction of Keeneland in 1935 and
rise of whites only (with Irish “lads”)
Will Harbut with
Man O’War 1930
Lexington’s Boom 1950s-60s
Desegregation and Re-Segregation of Lexington
• Growth of UK’s teaching and research mission with
federal funds through G.I. Bill
• Formation of the Lexington Industrial Foundation and
influx of new workers’ families)
• Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) & Lexington NAACP
Audrey
Grevious
(NAACP)
on
working
with Julia
Lewis
(CORE)
Civil
Rights
March
on Main
Street
1961
Audrey Grevious on civil rights activism in
Lexington, president of NAACP chapter
Segregation in Lexington:
West End, East End
Abraham Lincoln School on
Manchester Street, vocational
training for poor whites only
Mammoth Life Insurance Co. on Dewees
Street was owned by and served Blacks
Main Street As Dividing Line
The Lyric Theatre, 1948-63
Urban Development and New
Neighborhoods move South of
Main Street from 1958 on
Main Street 1964
1970s on
• 1968-1974 merger of Lexington-Fayette County
includes Lexington’s first black councilman Harry
Sykes in 1970
• Lexington Housing Authority pulled down barbedwire fence between Bluegrass (whites only) and
Aspendale
• 1999 demolition of Charlotte Court (built in 1941);
2006 Bluegrass-Aspendale, last of barrack-style
public housing, is gone but smaller sites still not
enough to house low income families
• 2014 - William Wells Brown Elementary in Lexington’s
East End listed as lowest performing school in KY
• Impact of racism in Lexington/Fayette County
on our children
• Document racial disproportionality, monitor
disparate outcomes in Fayette County
• Expand #s of anti-racist advocates, practitioners
• Anti-racist training, education
• Implement evidence-based best practices
• Change public policy at local and state levels