Resources on Black History

The Filson has published books and pamphlets on historical topics since its founding in 1884. It has published a quarterly history journal since 1926, first the Filson Club History Quarterly and now Ohio Valley History, published in cooperation with the Cincinnati Museum Center and the University of Cincinnati.

While slavery as a contentious political topic among whites was the subject of numerous early FCHQ articles, as historians turned increasingly to study the Black experience of enslavement and emancipation in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, the Filson’s publications followed suit Kentucky historians George C. Wright, Victor Howard, and Lowell Harrison made early, important contributions to this shifting perspective in the 1970s.

The 1990s saw a flourishing of Black history in Kentucky. The series by Dr. Blaine Hudson Hudson in the Quarterly could be compiled together and form an important book on slavery in and around Louisville.

• Slavery in Early Louisville and Jefferson County, Kentucky, 1780-1812 (1999)
• References to Slavery in the Public Records of Early Louisville and Jefferson County, 1780-1812 (1999)
• Slave Life at Oxmoor (2000)
• Crossing the Dark Line Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad in Louisville and North-Central Kentucky (2001)
• In Pursuit of Freedom Slave Law and Emancipation in Louisville and Jefferson County, Kentucky (2002)

Ohio Valley History has continued this trend, fueled by research conducted on Black life in Kentucky supported through the Filson’s scholarly fellowship program. An especially strong issue in 2002 set the tone:

• Pen Bogert, Sold for My Account: The Early Slave Trade Between Kentucky and the Lower Mississippi Valley
• Michael Crane, The Rebels Are Bold, Defiant, and Unscrupulous in Their Dementions of All Men: Social Violence in Daviess County, Kentucky, 1861–1868
• Michael Rhyne, We Are Mobed & Beat: Regulator Violence Against Free Black Households In Kentucky’s Bluegrass Region, 1865–1867

The next year, one of the most important articles in OVH history was published, Luther Adams’s It Was North of Tennessee: African American Migration to Louisville and the Meaning of the South (2003).

In addition to individual articles, the Filson has commissioned special issues on topics of critical importance to Black studies in Kentucky:

• 20^th Century Social Justice Movements (2007)
• The Pre-Civil War “Border War” (2014)
• Race, Slavery and Freedom in the Ohio Valley (2016)
• Kentucky Tourism (2019)
• Slavery on University Campuses (2021)

In the wake of the protests after the killing of Breonna Taylor in the summer of 2020, the Filson commissioned a special issue on Black & Indigenous History, which is permanently open access while the rest of our content remains accessible only to members and those with Project MUSE credentials. The introduction to that issue makes insightful links between the past and present, and lays out an ongoing, equitable, and inclusive publishing agenda for the Filson to pursue.

Kentucky-specific topics, of course, have always been important in OVH. Some highlights not previously featured include:

• Randolph Hollingsworth, African American Women Voters in Lexington’s School Suffrage Times, 1895–1902: Race Matters in the History of the Kentucky Woman Suffrage Movement (2020)
• Meg Eppel Gudgeirsson, “We Do Not Have Any Prejudice…but…”: Racism in the Interracial Berea Literary Institute, 1866–1904 (2020)
• Emily Bingham, “Let’s Buy It!”: Tourism and the My Old Kentucky Home Campaign in Jim Crow Kentucky (2019)
• Rebecca Richart, The “Backside” of the Track: Race, Recognition, and Labor Shifts in Thoroughbred Horse Racing (2019)
• Samuel Abramson, Disorder at the Derby: Race, Reputation, and Louisville’s 1967 Open Housing Crisis (2015)
• Dionne Danns, Voices of the People: Studies of Louisville Desegregation (2014)
• Victoria Harrison, Man in the Middle: Conway Barbour and the Free Black Experience in Antebellum Louisville (2010)
• Jonathon Free, What is the Use of Parks?: The Debates Over Parks and the Response of Louisville’s African American Community to Racial Segregation, 1895–1930 (2009)
• Matthew Salafia, Searching for Slavery: Fugitive Slaves in the Ohio River Valley Borderland, 1830–1860 (2008)
• Dwayne Mack, Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Berea College’s Participation in the Selma to Montgomery March (2005)
• David Wolfford, Resistance on the Border: School Desegregation in Western Kentucky, 1954–1964 (2004)

Because of its regional perspective, OVH covers a range of Black experiences in the region, which is an important perspective considering the long-term diaspora of Black Kentuckians seeking freedom and opportunity north of the Ohio River. Some examples include:

• Bayyinah Jeffries, Race Relations in Higher Education: The Case of the OSU 34 (2019)
• Mark Furnish, Black Hoosiers and the Formation of an Antislavery Stronghold in the Central Ohio Valley (2016)
• Pellom McDaniels III, An Accidental Historian in Antebellum America: Edward Troye, Thoroughbred Horses, and Representations of African American Manhood and Masculinity (2015)
• William Giffin, Acting to Shape Their Own Lives: African Americans in Civilian Conservation Corps Junior Company 1520-C, Southern Ohio, 1933–1935 (2013)
• Cicero Fain III, The African American Experience in Antebellum Cabell County, Virginia/West Virginia, 1810–1865 (2011)
• James Cebula, Creating a Multiracial Community in Post-World War II Cincinnati: The Kennedy Heights Experiment (2007)
• Jack Blocker Jr., Race, Sex and Riot: The Springfield, Ohio Race Riots of 1904 and 1906 and the Sources of Anti-Black Violence in the Lower Midwest (2006)
• Keith Griffler, Beyond the Quest for the “Real Eliza Harris”: Fugitive Slave Women in the Ohio Valley (2003)