A reenactment of the Battle of Richmond, Kentucky. These Civil War infantrymen, who've just shot off several rounds of cannon fire against invading Tennessee and Arkansas C.S.A. regiments, are probably reenacting U.S. soldiers from nearby Camp Nelson, a U.S. Army training ground for escaped slaves.
Tags: Camp Nelson U.S. Army United States of America slavery U.S. history black infantry black history Kentucky Battle of Richmond Civil War
I liked this part of the mural in Churchill Downs. It gives an idea of the social forces on the first free black jockeys. I particularly like the expression on the horse, "huh."
Tags: horse horse race Churchill Downs Louisville Kentucky
Andrew York's statue stands in downtown Louisville on the banks of the Ohio, where he once passed. York was the black slave to William Clark of Lewis & Clark expedition fame. York saved others on the expedition, gave sustenance and helped find a route to the West Coast. But as property, he received no recognition, land, nor money for his work that the freemen in his party received. He returned to a life of slavery after his two years of helping to map the continent.
I really like this statue by Louisvillian and sculptor Ed Hamilton. Out here in the wilderness, York stands tall and capable. Here is the dinner he caught and the rifle that he wields that would have been prohibited to slaves elsewhere. Out here, Andrew is any man's equal.
The city of Louisville would later spring up from where Mr. York stepped.
Tags: slave Lewis and Clark expedition Andrew York sculpture statue outdoor sculptor Ed Hamilton Louisville
This cabin was built around 1850 as a residence for slaves. But it did not stand here.
In 1866, Ham Brown, a free man of color and a shoe maker, bought the slave cabin in nearby Bloomfield, Kentucky. For generations the family worked hard on the cabin, where Brown and his wife had a family of nine. It remained in the family until 1980. The deteriorated cabin was moved to this garden land of rolling hills, flowers, ponds and green grass of Walnut Groves farm in 1998 as a historical site. It was repaired, reconstructed, added to, and further beautified.
It is so well taken care of that it deceptively looks like rural slaves in Kentucky lived quite nicely. They didn't.
The very humble Lincolns and their frontier family that totaled four, including son Abraham Lincoln, lived in a similar sized cabin about 30 miles away.
Tags: Kentucky Ham Brown log cabin slave cabin slavery slavery in Kentucky Nelson County Bloomfield Walnut Groves farm Kentucky marker #2249 American history Kentucky history
"There in those pleated faces
I see the auction block
The chains and slavery’s coffles
The whip and lash and stock."
- from Maya Angelou's The Mask
This is a statue of naked children holding onto each other around a pole at the old Cheapside Slave Auction block in Lexington, Kentucky.
Tags: Lexington Historical Society courthouse Lexington Cheapside Auction Block children slaves slavery forced separation from family Kentucky slave state statue