KY women and civil rights history

This is the transcript of an interview done with Georgia Powers, Kentucky's first female African American Senator. This is also an excellent piece if anyone wants to include oral history into their project and also makes a great primary source.

Betsy Brinson, Civil Rights in KY project director for KY Oral HIstory Commission, interviewed Audrey Grevious of Lexington at her home in Fayette County, April 13, 1999. A powerful storyteller and great educator, Grevious is generous in her oral history interview though she tries to downplay the fact that she played a major role in the local civil rights movement here in central Kentucky. From KHS catalog "Audrey Grevious speaks of her early education in Black schools which led her to become a teacher. She also became an activist, and, as President of the Lexington NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) together with Julia Lewis, President of Lexington CORE (Congress on Racial Equality) led a movement to challenge segregation in employment, and public accommodations. She notes the involvement of maids and non-profession people and the scarcity of ministers, with the exception of Rev. W.A. Jones, Historic Pleasant Green Baptist Church. When school integration came to Lexington, she tells how the Black students and teachers lost out."

Dated 1853, this is a very powerful source of information. What was a suffrage woman's source of encouragement and empowerment?

This site hosted by the Kentucky Historical Society was created by oral historian and archivist Doug Boyd (now at the University of Kentucky) - it offers open access to the transcripts and the video clips of the original interview of Jennie Wilson. The video clips were then edited and used within the KET production, "Living the Story" - see that version at http://www.ket.org/civilrights/bio_jwilson.htm

This link is where your terrific research journal entries reside - invite your community members to sign up and join the site so they can participate in the process... and keep it going after the semester is over!

A nice list of Kentucky Women artists from the beginning of the Civil Rights Era through the present. If anyone should find this useful, the list comprises at least 48 diffrent female artists from Kentucky, some of whom have had experinces and involvement in the Civil Rights Era and have incorporated these feelings and ideas into their artwork.

I think that this article gives a good insight into the influential women that have come out of Kentucky. It gives brief descriptions of each of the women. This could be a very helpful resource to look back at which women were the most influential.

Many influential artists, sculpture and painters came from Kentucky that were women. I too grew up in Louisville like many of these artists and found it cool that a scultpture from louisville did the Daniel Boone sculpture in Cherokee Park.

Since I just came back from active duty, I found this biography of Lt. Anna Mac Clarke very interesting. She was an African American woman born in Lawrenceburg, KY and was the first female, African American female, to be specific, to command an all-white unit. I feel that this brief article not only demonstrates the magnitude of such an accomplishment, but that it also provides wonderful insight about a topic that deserves much more attention: women in the military. With both the historical background and significance of this article, I think others will find it just as useful.

This article is very interesting. It is hard to believe that an African American women who led an all white group of troops late in her military career was subject to swimming in the pool at her base camp in Iowa only for one hour a week on fridays, after the pool was sanitized. Lt. Clarke had to be a strong willed women who was constantly challenged in her military life due to the fact of being black and a women. The majority of the army being white men, this race and gender issue must of been a challenge each and everyday.

Two women receive medals for their service in the military. They are from Wilmore these could be two women that could help with the oral history and give more insight into how women were treated in WWII as nurses.

I think that's a fantastic idea Mary. I just read the article and these women are very interesting.

This site has the lists of a large number of influential woman from Kentucky. They are listed according to their field and includes a short biography for each of them. The website focuses on woman who did significant public services for the state of Kentucky. There are not clear citations for all the information that has been gathered to make the website

This is a biography of Mae Street Kidd that looks substantial right now, but it does say not to cite due to lack of resources. The solution could be solved if they were to cite the "Passing for Black" book. Let me know if you think that this website would be informational to the rest of the group.

Short notification of the AASRP race dialogues series starting on Sept 16 - the video is online at http://www.ket.org/civilrights/bio_jwilson.htm. The note would have been more useful if it included the KET website information and some description of expectation of the attendees, i.e., to discuss openly and respectfully very difficult issues regarding race, gender, sexuality, segregation and Kentucky's violent past (and present).

This is the State agency website celebrating great human rights activists. This page in particular celebrates Dr. Mary Britton, a prominent woman not only in civil rights, but also medicine and anti-lynching and segregation laws. She was the first female African American physician in Lexington and was a powerful influence for the State of Kentucky. She was active in the Woman's Improvement Club.

this says she taught law classes at UK!

Oh, I like this little snippet, too: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=s5UwAAAAIBAJ&sjid=gS4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=7163,3445468&dq=emma+guy+cromwell&hl=en "Mrs. Cromwell Visits in the City Today"--so proper! Additionally, it might be useful to know in the future that Google News archives newspapers going all the way back to the 1920's (or earlier)! That is pretty cool.

I found it intresting that Cromwell said she would not have pursued politics as a careear choice unless her husband and son would have died. She was clearly invested in her local community, but still valued the idea of being a mother and a wife. The responsibilities that come with that would of outweighted her committment to public office in the political world.

Powerful video about a woman who lived during the violence of segregation and how everyday activities we take for granted today took great courage then. For more information about this time period in Kentucky's history, see George C. Wright's ground-breaking book _Racial Violence in Kentucky, 1865-1940: Lynchings, Mob Rule, and "Legal Lynchings."

This KET video will serve as the focus for the first of the UK AASRP Race Dialogues (www.uky.edu/AS/AASRP) held in the UK Student Center on Sept 16th 4:30-6 p.m.

The video on jennie and Alice Wilson is a powerful example of how standing up for what you believe in is the best thing a person can do. Jennie is a strong woman because of her childhood. Seeing her parents as slaves and as free people made an impression on her. This impression made her srong enough to raise foour children in Kentucky during segregation and send all four of them to college. Alice was strong enough to integrate into mayfield high school with 9 other children at the age of fourteen when no other black students would. After integrating she dealt with vocal abuse from white classmates, but never retaliated physically or vocally in a negative manner. Alice simply continued on with the importantt things in her life, the completion of school and the hopes of continuing onward to college.

A short bio of Emma Guy Cromwell

This should not only be gutted but read to remind us of our civic duties and responsibilities

Some musical examples of the era of The New Woman, the flapper and the post-suffragist political climate.

How might this music of the 1920s reflect (or impact) the history of Kentucky women?

This site offers some good information of the time Emma Guy Cromwell lived.

It gave a better frame of reference to put things in perspective.

Professor Isenberg offers a powerful argument that the first organized US women's rights activists can be traced to the antebellum period, long before the 1920 milestone of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.