A Brief History of Northern Kentucky by Webster Robert D.;Tenkotte Paul A.;

Author:Webster, Robert D.;Tenkotte, Paul A.; [Неизв.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2019-01-06T21:00:00+00:00

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Northern Kentucky after the Civil War

The Union’s victory in the Civil War, the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution (abolishing slavery, granting African Americans citizenship, and giving former slaves the right to vote), and gains made during Reconstruction were all seen by black people in Kentucky as steps toward the fulfillment of the promises of freedom and human dignity. Unfortunately, all of these promises were broken a few years after emancipation, when new laws were passed that reinforced the continuation of a fully segregated society.1 Among the new laws were those that forbade any person who was more than 12 percent African American from marrying a white person, and those that made it unlawful for blacks to attend schools with whites. In fact, schools for blacks were not permitted to be within one mile of a school for whites (600 feet in urban areas).2

Unlike most other areas of the state, some employment opportunities were available for blacks in Northern Kentucky, mostly as a result of river trade. Hundreds worked as steamboat loaders, cooks, polemen, maids, and stewards.3 By 1870, Jacob Price (1839–1923) was listed in the local census as a laborer and minister of the Gospel.4 Price, a black man who was freed before the end of slavery, had formed the First Baptist Church of Covington (African American) and, in that church, started the first school for black children in the city. He later operated a successful lumberyard at Fourth and Madison and was very active in civil, political, and educational rights for blacks. In 1939, the Covington Municipal Housing Commission named the new housing complex for low-income black people for Price.5 In the mid-1870s, William Grant, a former Covington city councilman, ran for the Democratic seat in the Kentucky legislature. One of his campaign promises was to the local black community. He met with several prominent African American leaders, including Price and Isaac Black, and promised that, if elected, he would revise the city’s charter to establish a public school for blacks.

As with the South in general, however, in much of Northern Kentucky blacks were denied access to such places as parks, movie theaters, restaurant lunch counters, public bathrooms, and recreational facilities such as the YMCA.6 Later, laws required special railway passenger cars for “colored people.” In 1874, the Kentucky legislature passed laws creating a comprehensive public school system that solidified segregation in schools even more.7 The William Grant School and Our Savior School in Covington, the Southgate Street School in Newport, the Paul Laurence Dunbar School in Elsmere, and the John G. Fee Industrial High School in Maysville were among the first schools built exclusively for black students in Northern Kentucky.8 Others included one just north of present-day Turfway Park, at Idlewild, and at Burlington, in Boone County. In Kenton County, schools for blacks existed at Independence, Kenton, Key West, Milldale, Morning View, and Scott.9 While it would be several decades before blacks would experience even the slightest sense of equal

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