City preserving records that could provide more historical context about slavery in Louisville

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Historic records that have been tucked away in the Jefferson County Clerk's Office are finally being dusted off and examined.

The city of Louisville and the Filson Historical Society announced Monday their partnership to properly preserve and catalogue documents and books from the 18th and 19th centuries that had been stored "for several decades for safekeeping."

The documents are said to possibly provide more historical context about slavery in Louisville and Kentucky. In the coming months, tens of thousands of records will be reviewed for information about the slave trade and the identities of enslaved peoples in the city and the state.

"Every time you flip through a page, there's all of these records of individual people and their lives," said Kelly Hyberger, director of Curational Affairs at the Filson Historical Society. "And for me, it's really interesting just to have this moment where you're connecting with these people from the past."

The clerk's office and Filson Historical Society plan to integrate the documents into the Filson's permanent collection at their Old Louisville campus.

"Kentuckians deserve unfettered access to the full, if painful, truth of our community's past, especially for the descendants of enslaved people in Kentucky who've been denied their own family histories for far too long," Kentucky Rep. Morgan McGarvey said in a news release Monday.

The Filson's African American History Initiative works with community partners to "fully preserve and share significant stories of Black history and culture in the Ohio Valley." The initiative adds onto the Filson's longstanding record of collecting, preserving and sharing work on Black history in Kentucky.

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