Slavery and Freedom in the Bluegrass State: Revisiting My Old Kentucky Home

by Gerald L. Smith (Editor)

Overview

Stephen Foster's "My Old Kentucky Home" has been designated as the official state song and performed at the Kentucky Derby for decades. In light of the ongoing social justice movement to end racial inequality, many have questioned whether the song should be played at public events, given its inaccurate depiction of slavery in the state.

In Slavery and Freedom in the Bluegrass State, editor Gerald L. Smith presents a collection of powerful essays that uncover the long-forgotten stories of pain, protest, and perseverance of African Americans in Kentucky. Using the song and the museum site of My Old Kentucky Home as a central motif, the chapters move beyond historical myths to bring into sharper focus the many nuances of Black life. Chronologically arranged, they present fresh insights on topics such as the domestic slave trade, Black Shakers, rebellion and racial violence prior to the Civil War, Reconstruction, the fortitude of Black women as they pressed for political and educational equality, the intersection of race and sports, and the controversy over a historic monument.

Taken as a whole, this groundbreaking collection introduces readers to the strategies African Americans cultivated to negotiate race and place within the context of a border state. Ultimately, the book gives voice to the thoughts, desires, and sacrifices of generations of African Americans whose stories have been buried in the past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813197111
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	02/21/2023
Pages:	380
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Gerald L. Smith is professor of history at the University of Kentucky and pastor of Pilgrim Baptist Church in Lexington. He has written extensively on the Black experience in Kentucky and is the author, editor, or coeditor of five books, including the award-winning Kentucky African American Encyclopedia.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. 149 North Broadway: Slave Incarceration at the Foundation of Kentucky Finance
2. Race Matters in Utopia: The Shakers and Slavery at Pleasant Hill
3. This Priceless Jewell Liberty: The Doyle Conspiracy of 1848
4. Necessary Violence: African American Resistance and Community in Civil War Era Kentucky
5. Unfinished Freedom: Legal Reconstruction in Kentucky
6. William J. Simmons and the Kentucky Normal and Theological Institute
7. Very Strong Colored Women: Black Women's Uplift, Activism and Contributions to the Rosenwald Building Program in Kentucky
8. Home Ain't Always Where the Heart Is: Women, Confinement, and Domestic Violence in the Gilded Age
9. "The Live Issue" of Black Women Voters in Kentucky
10. Give Us Something to Yell For! Athletics and the Black Campus Movement at the University of Kentucky, 1965-1969
11. Archer Alexander and Freedom's Memorial

Editorial Reviews

The splendid essays in Slavery and Freedom in the Bluegrass State are most timely as we ponder how to remedy the racial injustices, misuses of history, and myths identified with the song 'My Old Kentucky Home.' Focusing on the racial tensions that have long plagued interactions between Blacks and Whites in Kentucky and in the nation at large, this collection is a heartfelt manifesto, a reckoning, for truth and respect in race relations and in history. Collectively the contributions offer a beacon of hope and change for racial equality in deed as well as in word.

John David Smith

Slavery and Freedom in the Bluegrass State: Revisiting My Old Kentucky Home is history that matters. Smith's collection of superb scholarship on slavery, freedom, and civil rights is a crucial consideration of Black Kentuckians' centrality in shaping the history of the Bluegrass. It is an essential chronicle of Black life and humanity.

Luther Adams – Free Man of Color

Slavery and Freedom in the Bluegrass State makes a significant contribution to the subject's historiography. By exploring previously overlooked topics it helps broaden our understanding of role Black people played in Kentucky's history despite the many obstacles placed in their way. Additionally, the essays are all well researched and written. While (it) sets a high bar for future studies about the Commonwealth's Black history, it also encourages scholars to seek out other previously under-examined people, events, and topics.

Emerging Civil War

Smith's scholarly compilation of melting pot–like perspectives on Kentucky's almost sacred-like state song tosses aside its shibboleths and casts more illuminating light on the song's contentious interpretations. A bodacious work.

William H. Turner

This volume reveals the profound racial limits of 'My Old Kentucky Home' as an iconic song and idea in the minds and hearts of most white Kentuckians and offers fresh new understandings of the ongoing African American fight (both inter- and intra-racial) for citizenship, freedom, and democracy. As such, this book suggests a model for activists, historians, and policy makers seeking a new history that is appropriate for the expanding postindustrial age among the other states of our fragile union.

Joe William Trotter Jr.

Smith and his colleagues challenge myths about race relations in that border state. Many of the Black men and women explored in these essays will be new to readers, but their stories illuminate a record of heroic resistance to racism that is overlooked in most previous histories of Kentucky. Smith reminds readers that, regarding Kentucky's "racial past, the search is ongoing for truth and reconciliation." Unquestionably, this volume has made a worthy contribution to that mission.

Journal of Southern History

The contributors to this volume seek to recover the experiences of enslaved Kentuckians and their descendants—many of which have been erased, deliberately obscured, or sometimes even literally paved over in today's memorial landscape—and to place them at the center of the state's history. The result is an innovative, imaginative, and important book chronicling the struggles and achievements of Kentucky African Americans over two centuries.

Anne E. Marshall

Over the years, Kentucky's African American experience has been woefully ignored. Through his various works and efforts, Gerald Smith has been changing that narrative, and the contributors to this excellent, pathbreaking volume reflect that same spirit of inquiry, deep research, and fresh insights—from modern-day issues to exposing the false facade in the song 'My Old Kentucky Home.' Here the buried past of Black Kentuckians is reexamined, as old myths are debunked, and new accounts are now told. This work will cause me to revise my own writing, and it should be read by all who are interested in the state's history.

James C. Klotter