History of Education as Anti-Racist Activism in Fayette County, KY By Randolph Hollingsworth, Ph.D. University of Kentucky December 31, 2015 VA recognizes Town of Lexington in First Census 1,475 in town of Lexington 25% identified as Negroes 772 in Fayette County Anti-racist vs. Anti-slavery Activists David Rice (Presb) Slavery Inconsistent with Justice and Good Policy Peter Duerett & wife found First African Baptist Church with Rolla Blue, William Gist, Solomon Walker, James Pollock, including a free school by 1825 KY legislators get report of 15 colored schools operating in Kentucky KY Colonization Society seeks to transport freed teachers and missionaries to Africa American Colonization Society: The Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America founded 1817 Institutionalizing White Supremacy Black CodesWhites-only Public Resources 1792 ban on interracial marriage 1798 pass law, patrollers fill slave jails in Lexington Migration laws against free blacks Restrictions on retail for food or liquor 1811 white suffrage only Vagrancy laws enforce selling or leasing out any people of color Guilty before proven innocent using police to halt any mass meetings, whip recalcitrant slaves KYs Non-Importation Act ends rapid rise in black population in KY but enriched slave-owners 1838 Taxes for common law schools, poorhouses, orphanages = whites only 1865/66: KY legislature rejects ratification of 13 th and 14 th Amendments Amendments to the Constitution to define citizenship 13: abolish slavery 14: citizenship defined 15: protection of voting rights for men 19: protection of voting rights for women NOT fully realized until Civil Rights Act 1964 and Voting Rights Act : KY Senator Georgia Powers and Rep. Mae Street Kidd lead effort to ratify the two amendments in KY Civil Rights Activism & Rise of Jim Crow laws Lexington Colored Agricultural and Mechanical Association, /67 Lexington hosts two Black Conventions: protest separate coach law, anti-voting tactics and violence, testimony in courts, lack of public support for schools & streets in Black neighborhoods, race disparities in vagrant auctions, separate Colored School Fund = 1/3 of fund for whites Separatism of Lexingtons Club Women Kentucky Federation of Womens Clubs 1894 is for whites only E. Belle Mitchell Jackson educator at Camp Nelson also vocational training for orphans relied on self- help principles of Booker T. Washington 1894 Lizzie Fouse and KY Federation of Colored Women, Phyllis Wheatley branch of YWCA, Womens Improvement Club and Day Nursery Dr. Mary E. Britton, orator and writer for equal rights and anti-lynching, is also first Black to be licensed as a doctor in Lexington KY Woman Suffrage & Education 1st statewide woman suffrage law in nation Kentucky women femmes sole (head of household) in rural districts can vote on school issues 1880s Lexington Womans Improvement Club pushes for school reform 1892 Colored Orphan and Industrial Home founded by Ladies Orphan Society 1894 KY allows school suffrage for women in Lexington, Newport, Covington KY Woman Suffrage & Education 1895 Lexington womens first elections for school board inc. Ida Withers Harrison (first woman ever elected) 1900 Womens Emergency Committee lobbies for playgrounds, kindergartens, juvenile court system, regulation of child labor and to compel school attendance; Republicans gain 6 of 12 seats on Lexington School Board and G.P. Russell (Democrat) is fired 1901 School Wars shows organizational strength of African American women October 1901 Lexington Women Voter Registration, by Party Source: Lexington Leader, Morning Democrat, Lexington Herald (October 2, 1901) October 1901 Lexington Women Voter Registration, by Race Source: Morning Herald (October 2, 1901) Lexington School Board Voter Registrants vs. Election Returns 8,926 Total Registration of voters for Lexington School Board, Oct 1901 vs. 4,570 Total Votes cast, Nov 5 difference = ~50% 1899 difference = 30% 1897 difference = 7% October vs. November 1901 Segregation in Lexington Reinforced by Law Segregated housing in Lexington enforced by stipulations on deeds Separate Coach Law 1892 Day Law White women win back school suffrage with added proviso of a literacy test Will Locketts rape trial and martial law 1920 First kindergarten for Black children in 1924; Dunbar High School in 1925 Lexingtons Boom 1950s-60s Desegregation and Re-Segregation of Lexington Growth of UKs teaching and research mission with federal funds through G.I. Bill Formation of the Lexington Industrial Foundation and influx of new workers families) Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) & Lexington NAACP Civil Rights March on Main Street 1961 Audrey Grevious (NAACP) on working with Julia Lewis (CORE) Segregation in Lexington: West End, East End Abraham Lincoln School (1940) on Manchester Street, vocational training for poor whites only Mammoth Life Insurance Co. on Dewees Street was owned by and served Blacks 1970s on merger of Lexington-Fayette County includes Lexingtons first black councilman Harry Sykes in 1970 Lexington Housing Authority pulled down barbed- wire fence between Bluegrass (whites only) and Aspendale 1999 demolition of Charlotte Court (built in 1941); 2006 Bluegrass-Aspendale, last of barrack-style public housing, is gone but smaller sites still not enough to house low income families William Wells Brown Elementary in Lexingtons East End listed as lowest performing school in KY