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The Black Community News Collection compiles searchable newspaper articles and ads for local Black community events, schools, social gatherings, church events, obituaries, and wedding announcements in older local newspapers in the library’s collection. In addition to Lexington news, the articles contain information about people in many surrounding communities, as well.

In 1898, Lexington’s evening paper, the Leader* began publishing specific news columns about the local Black community and society events. Early columns were scattered and not consistently named; they were titled “Weldon” or “Welden” after the first Black columnist, “In Colored Circles,” “In Colored Society,” and later, became a more standard column titled, “Colored News” and “Colored Notes.” The other local paper, the morning Herald, began publishing a similar column in the 1920s. Lexington at that time had a weekly Black newspaper, the Lexington Standard, that ran from 1892-1912, when it briefly became the Lexington Weekly News before it folded.

The first reporter/columnist of Black social news in the Leader was John Weldon Jewett, a local educator later appointed to the IRS; he would often sign announcements with “Weldon” or “Welden” or “JW.” After his death in 1905, columns were contributed by William Henry Ballard, who opened the first Black pharmacy in Kentucky in 1893, and others. In 1925, the Herald appointed a separate department managed by Lucy J. Cochran, which was housed separately from the general newspaper office, and after multiple editors, D. I. Reid took over in 1934 and ran it until his death in 1950.

Community groups began to challenge the term “colored” and the “Colored Notes” being a separate news column in the 1950s, but Black community news was not integrated with the rest of the newspaper until 1969.

The only surviving issues of the Lexington Standard and the Lexington Weekly News can be found on Chronicling America.

Information about the Lexington newspapers and early Black editors was compiled from:

NKAA Database entry “Colored Circles, Colored News Notes, Colored News, General Colored News, and Colored Notes (Lexington Newspapers)”
Biographical sketches of prominent Negro men and women of Kentucky by W. D. Johnson, (1897)
*The Leader began as the Kentucky Leader in 1888, and several years later became the Daily Leader and the Sunday editions labeled as The Sunday Leader. It became the Lexington Leader in 1901, began sharing Sundays with the Lexington Herald in the 1950s, and eventually fully combined with the Herald to become the Lexington Herald-Leader in 1983.

Collection Content
Years Available:

The Leader: 1898, 1899

The Kentucky Progress Commission was formed in 1928 in order to draw tourism and business to Kentucky. It was formed by the Kentucky Legislature, and was a 12 person board. The “Kentucky Progress Magazine” was used by the board to promote Kentucky, and features local interest stories, photographs of people, places, and activities. It also features ads placed by various cities around the state. It was published monthly from September 1928 through August 1932, and continued quarterly until the Spring issue of 1936.

Some issues contain material that is under copyright, but qualifies for display by libraries under Section 108(h) of US Copyright Law. It is the user's responsibility to determine the copyright status of the material they want to use. 

The Kentucky Reporter was published from October 1817-April 1832, by William W. Worsley and Thomas Smith. It is the direct continuation of the The Reporter. Politically, it was a Republican paper (Jeffersonian Democratic Republican - liberal at the time.) It reported local and national news, elections, and speeches. The Library’s digital and microfilm collection ends in December 1830, but the bound volumes are available by request in the Kentucky Room Closed Stacks through 1832.

The library's collection contains many event pamphlets for Lexington and Kentucky counties, including county anniversary celebrations, suffragette songs, chautauquas, and community events and pageants.

Founded in 1982 by Gigi Galore (Greg Butler) and Blanche Pink (Marlon Austin), the Imperial Court of Kentucky, Inc., is a nonprofit charity that supports the LGBTQ+ community of Kentucky “one dollar at a time” through drag shows, social programs, and fundraisers. The Court uses the modus of English peerage to establish male and female lines of descent, with the female line comprising of drag queens (i.e. performers in drag), with each year an empress and emperor being elected. These “royals” represent the court throughout the upcoming year. The Court is a charter member of the International Court System with kingdoms in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Member courts are autonomous organizations bound together in a shared structure, policies, and goals, fundraising for HIV/AIDS services, human rights advocacy, and other LBGTQ+ stakeholders.

The Kentucky Gazette was the first paper established west of the Allegheny Mountains, founded by John and Fielding Bradford. The frontier paper focused on East Coast and International news, though some local announcements can be found. Later, the paper focused on disseminating opinions on politics and issues of concern on the frontier. When political parties emerged, the paper developed a Democratic (conservative at the time) bent. John Bradford handed the reins of the paper over to his son, Daniel Bradford, in 1802.

While still owned and occasionally edited by the Bradford family, the paper had several editors and publishers through the mid-1830s, when Daniel Bradford returned to the paper’s byline as editor. Daniel Bradford edited the paper until 1840, when he sold it to Jim Cunningham. The paper shuttered in 1848, due to Cunningham’s failing health, but was revived in 1866 and published until 1910 by different publishers.

The years 1841-1910 are not digitized as of January 2020, but are viewable on microfilm and in print in the Kentucky Room at Central Library. Selected articles are indexed in the Library’s Local History Index.

The Kentucky Room’s collection of The Kentucky Gazette is not complete. Here is a list of what is missing from the digitized collection:

1788: April 5, May 31, September 20

1789: All of May

1790: August 9 – November 27, December 27

1791: April 2, July 30, All of August, September 3, 10, 24, October 1

1792: April 2, September 15 - November 17

1793: May 4, June 15, July 20

1794: May 24, June 21, August 9 – September 13

1795: March 21, August 29, September 5, 12, 26, October 17

1807: Entire Year

1808: Entire Year

1821: January 26, February 1, 9, 16, March 29, April 5, May 3, 17, 24, 31, All of June, July 5, 19, August 9, 23, 30, September 20, October 18-December 27

1822: Entire Year

1823: Entire Year

1824: Entire Year

1827: Entire Year

1828: Entire Year

1829: Entire Year

1830: Entire Year

1831: Entire Year

1832: Entire Year

1833: Entire Year

1834: Entire Year

The photographs in the library's collection are donated from a variety of individuals. 

The Ashland-McDowell Collection shows an unknown gathering of friends and family at the Ashland estate, taken circa 1894, which included a parade of the estate’s horses.  Thoroughbreds Impetuous, King Reine, Oratorio, Argentina, and Bracegirdle are all being proudly shown at this event.   Photos also show members of the McDowell family in attendance, including Major McDowell and his wife, and their daughters Nanette, Julia, and Madeline.  The author John Fox Jr. was a frequent guest of the McDowells at Ashland and can be seen in one image playing a banjo on the lawn.

The Lena Hart Tobey Collection contains 12 photos. Lena Hart Tobey (1869-1939) was born in Mississippi to Thomas and Susan Watson Hart. In the 1890s, she attended school in Lexington, Kentucky. She married Ellis Tobey in 1896 and died in 1939 in Arkansas. After Lena Hart Tobey's death, her daughter Myrtis inherited a collection of photographs in a scrapbook. The family donated the Lexington, Kentucky marked cabinet cards to the Lexington Public Library in 2001. Some of the young adults in the photos have been named, though most have not.

The other images are miscellaneous photos donated from different sources.