Images of America, Louisville’s Historic Black Neighborhoods traces the communities freed men and women built here after the Civil War. Smoketown, the city’s oldest continuously Black neighborhood, took shape starting in 1866, and by 1950 was home to more than 10,000 residents. Other neighborhoods, including Petersburg-Newburg, Parkland, California, Russell, Berrytown, and Griffytown, grew alongside it.
The same era saw a striking milestone: at the first Kentucky Derby in 1875, 13 of the 15 jockeys were Black. Drawing on historic photographs, this book traces the rise of these neighborhoods and the lives built within them.
Published 2012
128 pages
$23.36
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