Black History in KY Video Series

The short videos visit places in Kentucky where important episodes or theme of Black history and culture played out. The videos were produced by NorseMedia, a student/faculty collaborative at Northern Kentucky University.

• SEEK Museum: Lynching’s legacy in Kentucky
• Boone County Public Library: To be a mother and a slave
• Behringer Crawford Museum: The Pullman Porters

From Our Partners

• “Empty Chairs” by Berea College student Amoni Adair
• “The Southgate Street School” by David Killen , NKU Public History Student
• “The Categories Black and White” by the Mourning the Creation of Racial Categories Project

In “Ol’ Time Religion,” the American Spiritual Assemble provides an overview of the history and importance of the Negro spiritual as anthems of freedom and home. (12 minutes)

Additional Resources:

• About the American Spiritual Assemble
• Performances by the American Spiritual Assemble (KET documentary)
• The Negro Spiritual Database (searchable)

Kentucky state Senator Georgia Davis Powers discusses how civil rights activists brought Dr. Martin Luther King and Jackie Robinson to Frankfort on March 5, 1964, to build support for a public accommodations bill.  (KET interview; 3:50 minutes)

Additional Resources:

• The Historical Scene Investigation Project has collected oral history on the march, including interviews organizers and officials.
• Photos of the march in the University of Kentucky archives
• Photo of Dr. Martin Luther King speaking at the march (Lexington Herald)
• The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society interview with Edward T. Breathitt, who was governor at the time of the march, about the event and the politics leading up to it.

“Living the Story: The Civil Rights Movement in Kentucky” is a KET documentary based on interviews by the Kentucky Oral History Project. It presents the personal experiences of men and women who recall life in a segregated society and the struggle to bring about social justice. (58:332 minutes)

Additional Resources:

The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia

A new HBO film explores Muhammad Ali’s legacy both in and out of the ring by looking back at his many appearances on the Emmy-winning The Dick Cavett Show. This clip features Ali talking how our culture’s emphasis on celebrity draws attention from those more important matters of social and economic justice and equality. (1:59 minutes).

Additional Resources:

• The clip above is part of a new HBO film, Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes, due for release on Feb. 11.

David Blight is the Sterling Professor of History, of African American Studies, and of American Studies. He is the author Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, which won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 2019. Dr. Blight delivered a lecture on Douglass for the Filson Historical Society in Louisville. (1:10 hours). 

Additional Resources:

• Dr. Blight’s Civil War lectures are available though Yale’s Open University.
• Quick facts on Douglass from the Freedom Center in Cincinnati.

PBS Learning Network tells the story of Harriet Tubman, the former enslaved woman who guided others north to escape Southern plantations. A video telling the Tubman story is coupled with lesson plans and additional resources. (4:22 minutes).

Additional Resources:

• Learn more about the Underground Railroad.
• Harriet Tubman’s Path to Freedom by Ron Stoghill, The New York times
• Harriet Tubman Facts and Myths: How the Movie Tried to Get It Right, by By Robert Ito, The New York Times

The Associated Press, the nation’s leading news service, was on the scene covering the civil rights movement. Beginning with the 1954 Supreme Court decision that ended school desegregation  and concluding with the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, this video examines that crucial decade of the civil rights movement. (9 minutes)

Additional Resources:

• AP Covers Gettysburg (6 minute video)
• Black Women of the Civil Rights Movement (AP photo essay)

“Davis Bottom:  Rare History, Valuable Lives” reveals discoveries made by a team of scholars about a small, working-class neighborhood established just south of downtown Lexington in 1865.  This our documentary was produced by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.  See how Davis Bottom remained a strong, safe, diverse and tight-knit neighborhood through remarkable oral history interviews and family photographs generously provided by current and former residents (1 hour)

Additional Resources:

• Opinion essay: Gentrification and Lexington
• News coverage: Gentrification and Breonna Taylor’s death
• Art exhibit: Slavery, New Orleans and Gentifrication

In this short, animated video,  “A More Perfect Union,” Story Corps features Theresa Burroughs recounting the challenges she faced after she came of voting age and wanted to register: “She had a long fight ahead of her. During the Jim Crow era, the board of registrars at Alabama’s Hale County Courthouse prevented African American people from registering to vote. Undeterred, Theresa remembers venturing to the courthouse on the first and third Monday of each month, in pursuit of her right to vote. (2:51)

Additional Resources:

• ABC News: Voter suppression history & timeline
• National Low Income Housing Coalition: History of voter suppression
• Dissent Magazine: Learning from Fannie Lou Hammer
• PBS: Fannie Lou Hammer’s 1964 testimony on voting rights
• UPK: This Little Light of Mine: The Fannie Lou Hammer story

The Journey is a walkable, drivable audio tour we created to share the story of Lucie and Thornton Blackburn, an enslaved couple who escaped Louisville in the 1830s and whose court case helped establish Canada as a boundary to freedom. A virtual option is available for those who cannot experience the tour in person. We worked in partnership with The Unknown Project which is dedicated to uncovering the names of enslaved people and returning humanity to those listed as simply unknown.

Additional Resources: