KY women and civil rights history

On June 1, 1956 all NAACP offices were forced to shut down in Alabama so a new organization was needed in Birmingham and throuhgout the southern state. The organization ran by a minister, focused on getting black police officers in Alabama, desgregation of the public schools and was associated by SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference).

SNYC was created in 1937 after a group of young blacks from Virginia traaveled to the National Negro Congress meeting in Chicago, Illinios in 1936. The newly created SNYC created campaignes for anti-lynching in the south and after 12 years had chapters in 10 states with 11,000 members across the United States and the south despite being watched by the FBI. They laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement in the south by getting many people incolved in the human rights movement.

Here is an excerpt from the khs catalog Eleanor Jordan Collection Name: The Civil Rights Movement in Kentucky Interview Date: 2/3/1999 Synopsis: Jordan tells of her developing awareness of civil inequalities as a young woman and memories of segregation at Louisville amusement parks, retail stores, and movies. She also remembers people involved in the civil rights activity related to schools and housing. She attributes her developing black consciousness and pride to her mother and to some school teachers who introduced her to American History and Black History.

I think that we have talked quite a bit about the women in the African American civil rights movement, but we have not really talked about the Chicano civil rights movement and the women involved with this movement. It would be a good idea for us to explore this movement and women in it as well.

Interesting article on how gender remains today an important category of analysis in women's political participation and public leadership roles in the US.

This directory was compiled and edited by Lucy Harth Smith - see Measha's research journal entry on her at http://www.kywcrh.org/archives/650 - it would be FANTASTIC if we could get some of these women's pictures used on the KYwCRh.org website! Anyone want to work with Reinette to pick out which pictures need to be digitized?!

Wonderful resources available here at the website for the UofL Anne Braden Institute - the Director is Dr. Cate Fosl who is joining us on Nov 18th with the AASRP Dialogues on Race session on Anne Braden.

Using the search terms Urban Renewal Development Plan, I got over 30,000 hits with references back the 18th century! wow! So, then I added in the dates 1964-01-01 to 1967-01-01 and got 34 hits... now that's more like it!

An interesting article concerning whether to keep the "Colored Notes" section in Lexington's papers written in 1964. 

"Selective finding aid to Lexington newspapers about significant people, places and events from 1787 to December 31, 2007. The selective citations included in the Lexington Public Library's Local History index appeared in various Lexington newspapers beginning with the Kentucky Gazette in 1787 through the Lexington Herald-Leader of December 31, 2007. The nucleus of the database index is a card file in the Kentucky Room developed by staff over a number of years." My mother helped with the creation of this index when she was a UK journalism student in the 1940s!

tips for history teachers on how 1960s movies show social pressures for anti-communism

article from the Social Science History Vol. 12, No. 4 (Winter, 1988), pp. 429-449

This is an interesting article...if I'm reading the tables right, it appears that almost 30% of Southern whites were considered to be sympathetic/supportive to extreme right wing groups. All are assumed to be white, but racism isn't explicitly discussed as one of their beliefs, only anti-communist and anti-change sentiments... Did/does "anti-communist" serve as a euphemism for race issues?

One of the largest groups of the KKK situated here in Kentucky.

"In addition to nominating segregationist candidates for office, the party demonstrated frequently and sparked or participated in street violence in several states. In St. Augustine, Florida, in 1964, Connie Lynch, the NSRP's "official policy speaker," told a crowd of 800, "I favor violence to preserve the white race....In 1966 Lynch and four other party leaders were convicted and sent to prison for inciting a riot in Baltimore, and killings took place in the wake of NSRP rallies in Alabama in 1965 and in Kentucky in 1968." This organization gained followers from many different kinds of right-wing activists: Klansmen, White Citizens' Councils, conspiratorial anti-Communists and George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party.

This data base searches for newspapers and where they are archived.

Here's the primary source for information on Bill Dady, a SDS organizer from Atlanta who lived at the Bradens while campaigning against a segregated public pool in Louisville and negotiating with the Kentucky Human Rights Commission.