African American Heritage Tour
Expiration: Mar 31st 2025
Lexington’s African American Heritage Tour highlights the rich history of African Americans in Lexington and their contributions to the city. Among the over 100 stops in 4 different legs of the tour, you will learn about Lexington’s history of slavery, segregation, the Black Freedom Struggle, and the many achievements of Black Lexingtonians. This tour is a great way to learn about some of the city’s most important historical landmarks and hidden gems of Black history.
Don't forget to check in using your phone's GPS for an entry into our quarterly drawing. Prizes will vary but will be a fun experience at one of Lexington's many black-owned businesses. Winners will be announced at the beginning of each quarter and will be contacted directly.
Included Venues
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See locations on an interactive map.
The Williams Race Track stood on the Todd property at Short and Georgetown streets and was used by the Kentucky Association from 1826 to 1828.
Archeological investigations have revealed the home's foundation, a section of which has been preserved and incorporated into the Issac Murphy Memorial Art Garden. The park is linked by the Legacy Trail to the Kentucky Horse Park where Murphy is buried, the only jockey so honored.
Breckenridge Street bordered the Kentucky Association racetrack. An entrance to the track was opened from the street in 1910. The street's unorthdox width is due to the fact that it once served electric streetcars as a turnaround until 1933.
Historic properties provide communities with a sense of identity and stability. Preserving and restoring these properties contriutes significantly to ensuring that they will remain for future generations. The cemetery was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. Some prominent people who are buried here include jockeys Oliver Lewis, Soup Perkins, trainer Abraham Perry, Free Blacks James Turner, Claudious Harvey, Samuel Oldham, White House Chef Laura "Dolly" Johnson, and Founders and Officers of Colored Fair Henry King and J. Andrew Scott.
Nathan Caulder, a career soldier who fought in multiple wars, ultimately dying in 1919 in France. He is buried at African Cemetery No. 2.
Palmer's business fostered relationships in the community and was a boon to the neighborhood. It offered a convenient location for people to obtain their medications. Its soda fountain and lunch counter served as a social function as a gathering place. The building also housed doctors' offices on the second floor, providing another essential service.
In addition to bringing his entreprenseurship and professional expertise to the East End, Palmer was actively engaged in the civic affairs in Lexington. He served on the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Chamber of Commerce, and Planned Parenthood. He was a member of Main Street Baptist Church, where he conducted a health care program, the Kentucky Human Rights Commission, and the Civic Center Board. He was the first African American memer of hte Optimist Club and Big Brothers. He chaired the local United Negro College Fund and helped organize Community Action Lexington-Fayette County and the Hunter Foundation for Health Care. Dr. Palmer was also the first African American to be appointed to the University of Kentucky's Board of Trustees. He served from 1972-1979.
Tragedy struck on September 4, 1968 when the blast of a bomb destroyed Palmer's newest store, along with several others in the West End plaza. After being trapped in the rubble for hours, he, his wife, Marian, and their daughter all went to the hospitall. Dr. Palmer believed that the attack stemmed from his invovlement in the local Civil Rights movement, which proved to be correct. In 1970, an all-white jury delibrated just ninety minutes before finding former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon, Phillip K Campbell guilty of the crime. Following this frightful and trying time, Dr. Palmer sold his business and retired to protect the well-being of his family. With the destruction of Dr. Palmer's West End plaza businesses in 1968, the Palmer Pharmacy building at 400 E Fifth Street is the last remaining building that he built, owned, and managed.
After the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified federally in 1865 and all of the state's Black citizens were officially free, the state saw a huge shift in the Black population as they left agricultural areas and moved to cities and towns. Neighborhoods in cities and towns were specifically established as Black subdivisions. Often the names were comprised of the white landowner's last name before the word "town."
Kinkeadtown is named for George Blackburn Kinkead, an antislavery advocate from early adulthood, even though he was raised in a family that owned slaves. Kinkead offered legal aid and employement to recently freed people during this transitional time. Kinkead purchased the 11 acre tract of land at East Fourth and Mosby Streets. By 1870, Kinkeadtown consisted of 17 properties and a small grocery store, located on the corner of East Fourth and Kinkead Street, owned and operated by a Black couple, Nathan and Eliza Page.
Having risen from being a newsboy became a political kingpin. In 1899, he was elected as a Democrat to the State House of Representatives. Klair's influence in local and state politics extended for three decades. His insurance company wrote policies for the city and UK.
One of few people of color buried in OEBG is London Ferrell, a free Black minister and one of only three who did not flee Lexington during the epidemic. This small Gothic Revival cottage was built in 1867 and stands at the center of the burying ground. Traditional holds that it was designed by Lexington architect John McMurty as a chapel.
George O Rogers bought a former grocery store and confectionary at the corner of Jefferson and West Main in 1923. He opened a second restaurant at 601 W Main Street. He sold his restaurant in the 1970s.*
The school, under William H Fouse's guidance, quickly became known for its academic and athletic achievements. He encouraged students to participate in the Blue Grass Oratorical Contest which eventually spread to twenty-two schools. The school's football team won the state championship in 1942 and its basketball team was ranked among the highest in Kentucky throughout the 1960s.
The school became a junior high school in 1967 after desegregation. It was closed in 1972 and the building was demolished in 1974. The entrance portal and the gymnasium identify the school's former site. It now serves as a community meeting and recreation facility.
With integration in the 1950s, the role of Deweese Street began to diminish as businesses were able to move to different areas, or in the case of insurance companies, were bought by larger companies. Beauty and barber shops and funeral homes were the exception, and they continued to provide services to East End residents.
Thomas Phillips (c.1790-1858) was enslaved to the Brand Family for "over half a century." He was not emancipated but allowed to preach and establish the Fourth Street Colored Christian Church in 1851. Phillips died in 1858 in the place where he had been enslaved.
Enslaved men, women, and children named in John Brand's will were: Tom, Isaac, Isabell and her three children, Jacob and Diana, Andrew, Nancy, and daughter Margaret. Johanna hired to Mrs. Bell. Solomon, Will, George, John, Dave, Dick, Betts, Harriet, Sam, Aaron, Sally, Ann, Matilda, Emily, Mary, and Martha her child. Old Mary, Eliza, Dicey, Tom, Harper, Lewis, little Stephen, Old Stephen, Jacob, Carr and China, Sanford (son of China) and little Moses and Jackson, sons of Evalina.
Winkfield raced in the US from 1899 to 1904. He won 161 races in 1901 alone. When Jim Crow injustice finally reached the racetracks, it forced him off the tracks. Winkfield was the last Black jockey to win the Kentucky Derby in 1902.
After death threats from the KKK and damage to his reputation for jumping a contract, Winkfield left the US for Czarist Russia in 1904. He had to flee the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and moved tp France. He fled Nazi-occupied France in 1940 and returned to the US, where he signed on to a Works Progress Administration work crew. In the 1950s, he returned to France and opened his own training school for jockeys. He attended the Kentucky Derby in 1961 with his daughter. They were denied entry to a pre-Derby party at the Brown Hotel until hotel management confirmed they were invited guests of Sports Illustrated. Winkfield returned to France and lived there until his death in 1974.
Perkins, the older brother of James Soup Perkins, the jockey, trained over 600 thoroughbred winners in 18 years. In 1926, he trained more winning horses (82 races) than any other trainer in the US. He lived at 503 E Third until his death in 1927.