Life Behind a Veil: Blacks in Louisville, Kentucky, 1865–1930

by George C. Wright

In the period between the Civil War and the Great Depression, Louisville, Kentucky was host to what George C. Wright calls "a polite form of racism." There were no lynchings or race riots, and to a great extent, Louisville blacks escaped the harsh violence that was a fact of life for blacks in the Deep South. Furthermore, black Louisvillians consistently enjoyed and exercised an oft-contested but never effectively retracted enfranchisement. However, their votes usually did not amount to any real political leverage, and there were no radical improvements in civil rights during this period. Instead, there existed a delicate balance between relative privilege and enforced passivity.A substantial paternalism carried over from antebellum days in Louisville, and many leading white citizens lent support to a limited uplifting of blacks in society. They helped blacks establish their own schools, hospitals, and other institutions. But the dual purpose that such actions served, providing assistance while making the maintenance of strict segregation easier, was not incidental. Whites salved their consequences without really threatening an established order. And blacks, obliged to be grateful for the assistance, generally refrained from arguing for real social and political equality for fear of jeopardizing a partially improved situation and regressing to a status similar to that of other southern blacks.In Life Behind a Blacks in Louisville, Kentucky, 1865 - 1930, George Wright looks at the particulars of this form of racism. He also looks at the ways in which blacks made the most of their less than ideal position, focusing on the institutions that were central to their lives. Blacks in Louisville boasted the first library for blacks in the United States, as well as black-owned banks, hospitals, churches, settlement houses, and social clubs. These supported and reinforced a sense of community, self-esteem, and pride that was often undermined by the white world.Life Behind a Veil is a comprehensive account of race relations, black response to white discrimination, and the black community behind the walls of segregation in this border town. The title echoes Blyden Jackson's recollection of his childhood in Louisville, where blacks were always aware that there were two very distinct Louisvilles, one of which they were excluded from.

Genres: History

302 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1985

Reviews

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quotable:

Historians have accurately labeled Reconstruction in Kentucky “Confederacy Supremacy.” A recent scholar of Louisville has called the influx of ex-Confederates into the city “remarkable.” It seems that a part of the “rite of passage” into the business world of the city was to have been an officer in the Confederacy. Nearly all of Louisville’s journalists, lawyers, realtors, and merchants were former rebels. By 1871 ex-Confederates dominated the Louisville School Board. Louisville’s ex-Confederates were determined to keep the memory of the Confederacy alive. They, like others throughout the South, established a dozen or more Confederate organizations – ranging from the Confederate Monument Association, which was responsible for placing statues in the parks honoring their fallen comrades, to the Confederate Association, an organization that worked “to see that no worthy Confederates shall ever become an object of public charity.”

Louisville officials disrupted as much as possible the humane efforts to assist the blacks that were being undertaken by several missionary groups. In fact, by the end of 1865 several of the northern missionary societies stopped sending their workers to Louisville a nd elsewhere in Kentucky because of the numerous threats on their lives and the state’s refusal to protect them. With local and state officials refusing to aid blacks or to prevent outbreaks of violence, the U.S. Government extended the Freeman’s Bureau to Kentucky in January 1866, selecting Louisville as its headquarters. Kentucky was the only loyal state to have the bureau, and this action only further aroused the hostilities of many embittered whites toward Afro-Americans.

1870-1900 Louisville’s black population increased by at least 35 percent each decade.

Louisville’s “polite racism” Not nearly as bitter in the denunciation of blacks. An example is a newspaper story about blacks entertaining whites at a Shriner’s Convention. The paper enjoyed detailing the entire program, and depicting the blacks as buffoons:
Pickaninnies, with their faces buried in huge cuts of watermelon; the sporty young negro dressed in his “ice cream suit’ dancing a cake-walk with his dusky bell, dressed to kill; the old mammy and the old darkies singing their plantation melodies and every other interesting feature associated with the care-free life of the negro in years gone by… were told in song, story and dance to a crowd that was estimated at 7,000 persons at the First Regiment Armory last night when 150 negro men, women and children took part in the “Grand Colored Jubilee and Festival,” which had been arranged by Kosair Temple for the Imperial Council and other visiting Shriners and their women folk.
The blacks performed many exotic dances. They sang and acted out numerous songs, with the crowd thoroughly enjoying “Kinky,” performed be a three-year old boy with unkempt hair, and “All Coons Look Alike to Me.” According to the paper, the audience was amazed that the 150 blacks could devour 50 huge watermelons “in less time than it takes to tell about it.” The entertainment closed with blacks singing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” Such were the attitudes and conditions Louisville blacks faced during the nadir period.

From the 1880s to 1917 black Louisville formed a number of institutions and organizations to serve the race. Living in a hostile white world, Afro-Americans did what they could to combat racial discrimination. But instead of devoting all of their energies to trying to solve the never-ending racial problems, they worked to build a better and richer life for themselves. Most black institutions suffered from a lack of money; some from a lack of workers. But considering that these institutions depended on black support, it is remarkable that an institution like St. James Old Folks Home lasted as long as it did. Too often scholars have spoken of disorder in the black community, of black talent being exhausted in just trying to survive. But the construction of a institution lake State University (Simmons College of Kentucky), which took considerable planning and years of earnest saving, shows the vision of black leaders and their dedication to bettering themselves and their community.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The synopsis of this book doesn’t do it justice as this is a very thorough account of housing, employment, education, politics , policing and social services by, for and against the black community of Louisville. This was incredibly enlightening and explains the root of most of our present day problems as they continue to cycle through to new generations.