Louisville's Historic Black Neighborhoods


Book Description

The Images of America series celebrates the history of neighborhoods, towns, and cities across the country. Using archival photographs, each title presents the distinctive stories from the past that shape the character of the community today. Arcadia is proud to play a part in the preservation of local heritage, making history available to all --Book Jacket.




Two Centuries of Black Louisville


Book Description

Since the settlement of Louisville in 1778, African Americans have created a history behind the wall of slavery and the veil of segregation, and have forged a remarkably vibrant community that, at times, influenced the political and cultural history of the nation. This community, while not entirely beyond the reach of white Louisvillians, was certainly beyond their field of vision - and its people and its achievements are largely unknown, even to more recent generations of African Americans themselves.Over the past two centuries and more, black Louisville faced many challenges: creating a free black community in the midst of slavery; the struggle to end slavery itself; the struggle to expand the limits of freedom in a segregated society; creating meaning and culture; the struggle to end segregation; and the struggle to expand the limits of freedom in a society in which African Americans are "neither separate nor equal." Louisville African Americans met each of these challenges and, by so doing, they created a community and defined its identity and character. When most successful, they capitalized on their opportunities and assets, the most important of which derived from Louisville's favorable location, the need for black labor, the need for black votes and the presence of a few influential white allies. The resulting economic and political capacity, when used astutely, could wrest concessions from white businesses and political leaders that advanced the interests of the entire African American community.The purpose of Two Centuries of Black Louisville: A Photographic History is simply to tell this story in words and images - a history in which all, irrespective of race and place, can take pride.




Life Behind a Veil


Book Description

In the period between the Civil War and the Great Depression, Louisville, Kentucky was host to what George C. Wright calls "a polite form of racism." There were no lynchings or race riots, and to a great extent, Louisville blacks escaped the harsh violence that was a fact of life for blacks in the Deep South. Furthermore, black Louisvillians consistently enjoyed and exercised an oft-contested but never effectively retracted enfranchisement. However, their votes usually did not amount to any real political leverage, and there were no radical improvements in civil rights during this period. Instead, there existed a delicate balance between relative privilege and enforced passivity.A substantial paternalism carried over from antebellum days in Louisville, and many leading white citizens lent support to a limited uplifting of blacks in society. They helped blacks establish their own schools, hospitals, and other institutions. But the dual purpose that such actions served, providing assistance while making the maintenance of strict segregation easier, was not incidental. Whites salved their consequences without really threatening an established order. And blacks, obliged to be grateful for the assistance, generally refrained from arguing for real social and political equality for fear of jeopardizing a partially improved situation and regressing to a status similar to that of other southern blacks.In Life Behind a Veil: Blacks in Louisville, Kentucky, 1865 - 1930, George Wright looks at the particulars of this form of racism. He also looks at the ways in which blacks made the most of their less than ideal position, focusing on the institutions that were central to their lives. Blacks in Louisville boasted the first library for blacks in the United States, as well as black-owned banks, hospitals, churches, settlement houses, and social clubs. These supported and reinforced a sense of community, self-esteem, and pride that was often undermined by the white world.Life Behind a Veil is a comprehensive account of race relations, black response to white discrimination, and the black community behind the walls of segregation in this border town. The title echoes Blyden Jackson's recollection of his childhood in Louisville, where blacks were always aware that there were two very distinct Louisvilles, one of which they were excluded from.




African-American Life in Louisville


Book Description

Louisville's African-American community dates back to the early 1800s. Before the 1850s, many Black churches such as the Quinn Chapel A.M.E. Church were founded in the area. Prominent African Americans, including Whitney M. Young, Woodford Porter, Frank Stanley, and Calvin Winstead, became Louisville's pioneer families in modern business and politics. Within the pages of this volume are many of the families who worked to become institution builders and leaders--in Louisville and around the world. African-American Life in Louisville covers the period from the late nineteenth century to the 1960s and focuses on the people and places in the Greater Louisville area, including Shelbyville. Author Bruce Tyler, Associate Professor of History at the University of Kentucky, Louisville, has created this unique collection of vintage photographs as a tribute to his community.




River Jordan


Book Description

Since the nineteenth century, the Ohio River has represented a great divide for African Americans. It provided a passage to freedom along the underground railroad, and during the industrial age, it was a boundary between the Jim Crow South and the urban North. The Ohio became known as the "River Jordan," symbolizing the path to the promised land. In the urban centers of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Evansville, blacks faced racial hostility from outside their immediate neighborhoods as well as class, color, and cultural fragmentation among themselves. Yet despite these pressures, African Americans were able to create vibrant new communities as former agricultural workers transformed themselves into a new urban working class. Unlike most studies of black urban life, Trotter's work considers several cities and compares their economic conditions, demographic makeup, and political and cultural conditions. Beginning with the arrival of the first blacks in the Ohio Valley, Trotter traces the development of African American urban centers through the civil rights movement and the developments of recent years.




Way Up North in Louisville


Book Description

"Adams makes a splendid contribution to the historical literature of the post-World War II years in African American and U.S. urban and social history. Grounded in careful research from a variety of primary and secondary sources, this book advances a comp




Ghosts of Old Louisville


Book Description

Old Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, is the third-largest National Preservation District in the United States and the largest Victorian-era neighborhood in the country. Beneath the balconies and terraces of the district's Gothic, Queen Anne, and Beaux Arts mansions, current residents trade riveting stories about their historic homes. Many of these tales defy rational explanation. When David Dominé moved into one of these houses, he dismissed local rumors of a resident poltergeist named Lucy. However, before long, unnerving, disembodied footsteps and mysterious odors caused him to flee his home in the middle of the night. Since that night, David Dominé not only embraced the possibility of supernatural phenomenon but also turned it into a popular tour series and best-selling collection of books, which have brought new attention to this iconic neighborhood. The book that launched the guided tours, Ghosts of Old Louisville, introduced readers to the hauntingly beautiful Lady of the Stairs and the Widow Hoag, who waits eternally near Fountain Court for a lost child who will never return. These tales of things that go bump in the night not only reveal why Old Louisville is considered the "most haunted neighborhood in America," but also help to preserve this historically and architecturally significant community.




University of Louisville: Belknap Campus


Book Description

Belknap Campus, the historic heart of the University of Louisville (UofL), was laid out just before the Civil War as a city-owned reform school and orphanage. In 1925, the university acquired the site, relocating its undergraduate college and adding an engineering school. Eight structures from that earlier use give the modern campus its strong historical feel. This volume is rich with images of student life, from homecoming and campus hangouts to intramurals and sports. University of Louisville: Belknap Campus chronicles the dramatic expansion of the campus into adjacent neighborhoods, drawing heavily on archival sources. The Belknap Campus story provokes both warm recollection and pride in a 200-plus-year-old institution that is part of the core fabric of what makes Louisville great.




The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia


Book Description

The story of African Americans in Kentucky is as diverse and vibrant as the state's general history. The work of more than 150 writers, The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia is an essential guide to the black experience in the Commonwealth. The encyclopedia includes biographical sketches of politicians and community leaders as well as pioneers in art, science, and industry. Kentucky's impact on the national scene is registered in an array of notable figures, such as writers William Wells Brown and bell hooks, reformers Bessie Lucas Allen and Shelby Lanier Jr., sports icons Muhammad Ali and Isaac Murphy, civil rights leaders Whitney Young Jr. and Georgia Powers, and entertainers Ernest Hogan, Helen Humes, and the Nappy Roots. Featuring entries on the individuals, events, places, organizations, movements, and institutions that have shaped the state's history since its origins, the volume also includes topical essays on the civil rights movement, Eastern Kentucky coalfields, business, education, and women. For researchers, students, and all who cherish local history, The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia is an indispensable reference that highlights the diversity of the state's culture and history.




Phantoms of Old Louisville


Book Description

A paranormal investigator and Old Louisville resident explores chilling reports of hauntings among the historic homes of the National Preservation District. The Louisville, Kentucky, neighborhood known as Old Louisville is one of the country’s largest National Preservation Districts and the largest Victorian-era neighborhood in the country. Beneath the balconies and terraces of the district's Gothic, Queen Anne, and Beaux Arts mansions, current residents trade stories about the strange and unexplained phenomena they encounter in their historic homes. When David Dominé moved into one of these houses, he dismissed local rumors of a resident poltergeist named Lucy. But soon, disembodied footsteps and mysterious odors changed his mind. Now Dominé is one of Louisville’s best-known investigators of paranormal phenomena. In Phantoms of Old Louisville, Dominé recounts a horrifying encounter at the Spalding Mansion and the long history of the kindly spirit Avery, who guards the iconic Pink Palace. These tales of things that go bump in the night not only reveal why Old Louisville is considered the "most haunted neighborhood in America," but also help to preserve this historically and architecturally significant community.