Race Relations
A native of Louisville, this world heavy-weight boxing champion became a vocal spokesman for racial equality and social justice.
Who is Muhammad Ali (or Cassius Clay)?
This legal agreement utilized by coal companies to separate mineral rights from surface rights led to the economic ruin of many eastern Kentucky residents. According to such agreements, companies were permitted to take any steps necessary to extract coal and the surface owner retained the tax burden. Such agreements were not outlawed until 1989.
What is the broad form deed?
This, the most famous eastern Kentucky feud, broke out in 1882 between a West Virginia and a Kentucky family. By the time it was settled as many as 20 were dead, both state governments had stepped in, and Kentucky became known throughout the country as a violent and lawless place.
What is the Hatfield and McCoy Feud?
Established in 1866, John Fee founded this institution to provide interracial education. In 1904, the school was forced to stop admitting black students and at that time it switched its mission to educating Appalachian youth.
What is Berea College?
As former Majority Leader of the U. S. Senate and current Minority Leader, most would agree he is one of the most politically influential Kentuckians of the twentieth century.
Who is Mitch McConnell?
This white couple from Louisville violated the racial conventions of the day by buying a house in an all-white neighborhood and reselling it to a black family. The incident resulted in the house being blown up and the white participants accused of being communists.
Who are Carl & Anne Braden?
Bordered by I-64, I-71, and I-75, this area of the state has consistently seen the most economic growth, a reality that continues today, even now that the digital economy has made transportation and proximity to urban centers less necessary.
What is the Golden Triangle?
These acts of violence directed at private road companies in the 1890s ultimately led to most roads becoming publicly owned. This was just one of several examples of Kentuckians eschewing legal means and taking matters into their own hands.
What are the Tollgate Wars?
This program, established by Cora Wilson Stewart in the 19-teens, sought to lower KY’s high illiteracy rates by teaching adults to read. Stewart’s program became a model nationwide, but in the process called attention to another way Kentucky appeared backward.
What are Moonlight Schools?
Founder of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, this woman became a leader in the suffrage movement on both the state and national level during the early twentieth century. Her opposition to a federal amendment led her to break with the state organization, but as a member of the elite, she provided the cause the legitimacy it needed to become a mainstream issue.
Who is Laura Clay?
A member of the NAACP, this veteran and school teacher from Louisville sued the University of Kentucky for admission to its history graduate program. The University did not bend its policy on admitting African Americans immediately, but in 1949, it desegregated.
Who is Lyman T. Johnson?
A native of eastern Kentucky this man traveled throughout the region at the turn of the twentieth century purchasing coal lands on behalf of northern companies. Landowners, trusting this visitor and unaware of the true value of their mineral rights sold them for only a fraction of their true worth.
Who is John C. C. Mayo?
In 1900, following a hotly contested election, this gubernatorial contender was shot on the steps of the state capital. He died only three days after being sworn in. This incident helped to reinforce the nation’s impression of Kentucky as a violent and savage region.
Who is William Goebel?
During 1907 and 1908, Progressive Kentuckians participated in these speaking tours, which were designed to build support for the state’s school system. These tours resulted in some improvement, but soon interest tapered off, leaving the state to fall further behind the rest of the nation.
What were the Whirlwind Campaigns?
This woman, a member of one of Kentucky’s most prominent families, established the Frontier Nursing Service in Leslie County in 1925. Not only did she introduce the concept of nurse-midwifery to the United States, but she also developed a model of rural health care that continues to influence health care providers throughout the world.
Who is Mary Breckinridge?
This law passed by the Kentucky legislature in 1904, prohibited interracial education in the state’s schools, both public and private. Targeted specifically at Berea College, it remained in effect until 1949.
What was the Day Law?
This faction of the Kentucky Democratic Party embraced the idea of the New South after the Civil War, supporting industrial development and urbanization.
What are New Departure Democrats?
A period of violence that racked western Kentucky between 1904 and 1907, these events occurred when tobacco farmers organized cooperatives and fought back against the American Tobacco Company. Their efforts to seek economic justice often resulted in incidents of racial violence.
What was the Black Patch War?
The Rose v. Council for Better Education case, prosecuted by former governor Bert Combs, resulted in the state supreme court declaring the state’s public school system unconstitutional in 1989. This major piece of legislation that followed made Kentucky a model of education innovation.
What is the Kentucky Educational Reform Act?
Two-time governor, namesake of the University of Kentucky Medical Center, and former commissioner of baseball, many expected this man to one day become president, but that never happened.
Who was Happy Chandler?
These documents issued by the military commander of Kentucky beginning in 1865 allowed African Americans whose status remained unclear following the war to travel at will and to leave their enslavers. The federal government’s need to take these measures reveals the resistance within the state toward emancipation.
What were Palmer Passes?
This program, passed in 1934 as part of the New Deal’s Agricultural Adjustment Act provided a mechanism for tobacco growers to set a voluntary, but mandatory quota to limit production. This program proved highly successful, driving prices up and eliminating much of the risk the state’s farmers typically faced.
What is the Tobacco Control Act?
Throughout the 1930s, this area in eastern Kentucky shook with violence as a result of the UMW’s attempts to unionize coal miners, gaining this nickname. With the passage of the Wagner Act, the union eventually won out, but not without significant loss of life and property.
What is Bloody Harlan?
The recognition that the state needed to move away from coal helped lead to this ambitious plan, which governor Paul Patton introduced in the 1990s.
What is the Arts & Smarts Plan?
A lawyer and author, he helped draw attention to Appalachia and his writing significantly influenced the War on Poverty. He believed that coal was a dying industry and Kentucky needed to shift away from it.
Who was Harry Caudill?