♪ >> When the motto was friendly with a and B, the major thing that happened in the 60's, we were there.

>> We recognize the work of the civil rights activist who use music and song this forms of protest.

His story has just been so quietly honored so far in our community that we just felt like it was time to just shout it out really loud.

A western Kentucky city honors a man who captured some of the most iconic photos of the civil rights movement.

>> A pilot like history to do it in a way that's never been done before.

>> Plus, how augmented reality is teaching Kentuckians about local black history.

>> Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KET Millennium Fund.

♪ ♪ Good evening and welcome to a special edition of Kentucky EDITION.

I'm Renee Shaw.

We thank you for spending some of your evening with us.

>> Today on Martin Luther King Junior Day.

We honor the life and legacy of the slain civil rights leader.

>> Martin Luther King Junior had many ties to Kentuckyian made stops in the Bluegrass State.

King's most well-known visit to Kentucky was in 1964. leading a march of 10,000.

Kentuckians on this Capitol steps.

The March on Frankfort helped get the Kentucky Civil Rights Act of 1966, past last year marked the 60th anniversary of the March on Frankfort, the Fraser Museum of Louisville observe the anniversary with some of the original marchers sharing their memories of that day and how it changed the course of the civil rights movement and Kentucky.

>> It was all to you.

Why the monkey on front foot.

>> The 64 Civil Rights Bill.

they were right there with you can be so civil rights was all in the world.

>> Commission on Human Rights was established in 1960.

>> Well, people all around him speaking with Lights Commission will first the summit launches and 64 that made the foundation for the feds to legislation >> But that the commission saying authority as a coup in the low investigate complaints of discrimination.

All of that never been in place.

It not been for the lower 90's before.

>> The Kentucky Civil Rights Act prohibits housing and employment discrimination based on race.

National origin, color or religion.

The Kentucky General Assembly passed the act and Governor Ed Arnett breath it signed into law on January 27th 1966 and it was the strongest Civil Rights Act in the South.

Governor Andy Beshear spoke at the VA hospital in Louisville last week on what would have been Doctor King's 96th birthday.

He reflected on the progress his administration has made.

He says when it comes to racial justice and committed the hospital staff on how their work fits into Doctor King's vision of justice and unity.

>> As we embark on a new year.

It's as important as ever that we remember the legacy doctor Martin Luther King Junior and to take time to reflect on his impact.

We must end the racial injustice that continues to hurt our people.

And that holds our society back from its full potential.

Now, I understand that I'll never feel truly feel the historical an ever present weight of racism of inequities of injustices that have persisted for so long.

But I know that there.

And I'm willing to listen and that right here work with so many incredible leaders in this and other communities to be intentional and to make real change.

And I'd like to think by listening to those leaders, we made a lot of progress moving forward even just this past year.

This summer, I was proud to join advocates and leaders from across the state to sign an executive order making Juneteenth an executive branch holiday for the first time in state history.

I signed another executive order, one that prohibits discrimination in the workplace because of hairstyles.

Historically associated with race.

If the legislature wasn't going to pass the Crown Act, I was going to sign an executive order applying it to our executive branch.

And I'm proud to now site the first black general and the U.S. Army came from the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Charles Young was born in Kentucky.

Inmates like in Mason County in 18, 64, he became the first black colonel in the U.S. Army.

He has an incredible story.

He spoke about 5 different languages.

The first African-American for an attache.

We KET, though, that racism of that day in and day sense that kept him from being promoted right fully to general based on his work.

So 2 years ago, a posthumously promoted then Colonel Charles Young to the honorary rank of Brigadier general in our National Guard.

And then I asked President Biden to make it for real and he did a year later, Dr King said of all the forms of inequality, injustice in the health and health is the most shocking and inhuman.

So I'm so proud of what you do each and every day to make sure that health care is available to every veteran and that everyone gets the very best service.

So on a on a day or or on a weekend or on a birthday where we celebrate the legacy of Doctor Martin Luther King, the King junior and his on wavering dedication to service, quality and compassion.

I want you all to know that.

You live out those values and the people that you serve at this facility and beyond.

So today, it's a day to give thanks to him and that legacy that continues to teach us.

But to give thanks to you as well.

>> A civil rights activists in Logan County met and marched with Doctor King Charles.

And that blood was a founding member of the Freedom Singers who used music as a non violent form of protest.

Our Laura Rogers tells us more about Ned, let's life and his work.

>> I want to want to encourage a school.

>> Charles Avalanche was raised in a small town in Tennessee by activists.

Parents.

>> My mother told us that were nobody, none better than us.

And that's when segregation was grap it in the 40's.

>> He would later be moved to action by the brutal killing of Emmett Till it the most top of sight I've ever seen in my life.

Our sick.

It lit a spark blood as he saw himself and the young boy that's going to do something about it.

That was really a black day because that with me now what the go on to lead desegregation efforts as a student at Southern Illinois University and join to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the early 1960's lot of singing going on in that movement and it had to be.

Because we're pressing in people would have the courage to do things they did.

>> Though he initially rejected phone calls to join the freedom singers.

Both of them had more important things to do.

That would change his mind.

And some may say the course of history.

>> The song is so important because what we did we saying so.

So, Ed, thanks to all who saying that stuff, but the angle, but let nobody turn me around.

Will KET us more of my my state on freedom.

>> He says the songs were a motivator and in organizing tool they would lead him to cross paths with Doctor Martin Luther King junior.

Well, Doctor King was one h*** of a preacher.

But he couldn't say.

>> So we've got the king.

He say you don't have something to hide.

You don't glad to see you.

He said kind of saying with the >> freedom singers, travel all over the country and performed at the March on Washington in 1963. in 2011, they were back in the nation's capital to perform at the White House.

Built by what home.

That's how my support and he came through and talk to us like we had about.

Is it with this remarkable?

And we performed.

We got Barack Obama and his wife and everybody is with that made him stand up saying it's a thing.

Those >> Diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer.

Now blood also advocates for health equity as black men in the U.S. are more likely to develop and die from the disease is found out too late.

>> And the point is if you catch it early, it's a big test.

You can beat it.

>> Net bullet encouraging the black community to get screened early and often on this.

Martin Luther King Junior day, he echoes Doctor King's message of love, a quality and justice.

The children here.

The troop.

And a POW.

Of change.

Good people like that that he made and being a vehicle of change in their own communities.

For Kentucky Edition and Laura Rogers.

Thank you, Laura Charles now but will give the keynote address this Wednesday at the doctor, Martin Luther King, Junior Unity Walk celebration.

The March begins at 8.15 that morning at the Jesus Church of Russellville, Kentucky followed by the program at the Logan County Courthouse, host of Katie's Kentucky Health Dr.

When Toxin will also speak.

Another western Kentucky native at the march on Washington was Monet to sleet, a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer who captured images of the mark sleep passed away from cancer in 1996 decades after his passing, he is being remembered for his contributions to the civil rights movement.

The city of Owensboro known for barbecue bourbon and blue dress.

>> Now paying tribute to one of its natives figure credited with some of the most influential photographs of the civil rights movement.

>> Very and very important to one's bureau.

And I believe everyone should know about and should be taught in schools.

>> He means that on can produce some beautiful things.

And people that can contribute not just to our community, but 2, the history of our country.

>> Monet to sleet, junior worked for Ebony magazine capturing key moments in history reflected upon today.

It just gives a greater context to what our history books have tried to convey.

>> In 1969, sleet won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of Coretta Scott King at the funeral for her husband, Doctor Martin Luther King junior.

It humanized the that didn't make it so far removed that because he was just this big.

I kind of show that he was somebodys husband.

He was someone's father.

>> When we were in leadership, Owensboro, we were charged with.

How do you make Owensboro better?

One of the ways that I thought we could make Owens were better was to lift up positive stories from our community that led to organizing a festival celebrating a man born in Owensboro that rose to professional acclaim, becoming a friend to Doctor King.

He took pictures of those intimate moments.

>> Drew Hardesty and any was Lee traveled the country interviewing people most familiar with sleet, work, producing a documentary, has photographers and videographers.

You know, you're kind of the unsung hero.

You stay behind the camera.

>> You don't get all the recognition.

So and that's fine.

But it was his turn is his time to get his recognition.

>> With ow photojournalists in specifically journalist like sleet, we would lose some of that history.

That's just so profound and ingrained in our society.

It's important that we learned there's a person behind that photograph.

>> Several 100 people attended the festival which also included exhibits monologues and conversations.

I think it was something very important for our community to see.

>> That we can honor African Americans that have contributed to our community and also to the country or Kentucky edition.

I'm Laura Rogers.

Thank you again, Laura, another Kentuckyian with ties to Doctor King, boxing legend Muhammad Ali, though they had opposing views the 2 icons were friends in 1967.

King and Ali appeared together at a rally for fair housing at all.

Lee's hometown of Louisville, the fight for justice was just as much a part of Ali's legacy as Dr King's our Kelsey Starks at down with Ali's widow, Lonnie Ali, to talk about his legacy and why it's still very much alive.

Let's talk about some very big projects will be hearing about very soon, Ali, the music Hall, which has been in the works for.

>> Years, Rice and and with a teddy Abrams composing music for it and >> tell me about your involvement and with what we can expect here.

I cannot wait for this.

>> Well, you know, Tony, it was Ted is concept because he did a little musical opera on Muhammad here.

And he he wanted to expand that.

So he asked me about this.

That was shortly after mom.

It's passing that he asked me, could he pursue that, which he did.

And now it's, you know, we have Richard Willis who is a huge producer.

Fabulous team of people who are putting together this musical.

And I am an executive producer on it.

I haven't seen all of it because I didn't realize how layer it was putting to a musical together.

It is so much work so much work.

And, you know, it's not only writing the story is writing the lyrics, learning the dance.

Everything is just a lot of work.

But anyway, they made the announcement in Chicago in August.

And it's going to open at the Nylander Theater there.

Next April.

So that's big, huge, huge.

But I can't wait to see it and its completion and produce it.

House produced and, you know, see the final final product.

What you've seen so far, though, what can you tell us?

>> It's going to be awesome.

It's going to be awesome.

I mean, they the people that they have working on the it's going to be awesome.

But it will spend a month in Chicago.

They'll tweak it and then they'll take it to Broadway.

So hopefully it'll be a phenomenal, phenomenal show.

What Muhammad have thought.

Oh, my goodness.

Comment on Broadway.

Not could you KET him away every night.

His name in It straight audit.

He loved it.

>> And I'm sure we will to thank you.

Kelsey.

The Jim Crow era was a period in American history when state and local laws enforced racial segregation.

It lasted from the post Civil War era until the Mid 1960's third-year law students at the University of Kentucky are learning about that era in American history and what actions the justice system took to perpetuate and preserve racist ideas and practices the civil rights and restorative Justice clinic allow students to research cases with racially motivated violence that left bloc.

Kentucky is dead as the people responsible went unpunished.

>> The project itself isn't developed exclusively here at Kentucky.

It actually has an origin at the stern School of Law Cause.

If there is to investigate cold cases of racial violence and lynchings throughout it.

Jim Crow era throughout the south and as they've been moving up from the south and starting to touch what they refer to as border states, Kentucky.

And the idea was to try to talk to folks here on the ground here at UK law, what we cannot develop the project yourself.

So the civil sort of justice program in Kentucky is a clinical program.

>> And so we define clinical program by opportunities for students are really getting to engage in real life work, right?

Whether it's representing clients, Duke case, research, et cetera.

But the work they're doing is not simulated.

It's not a hypothetical, right?

It's real world.

>> Right now I'm working on to kind of 3 cases my role is kind of like I call myself a cold case.

Detective so we go through and look at archival materials.

So >> census records, birth records, World War 2, one draft cards.

Stuff like that to get a more full picture of who they were.

We've been working these cases for the 7, 8, months.

>> You do start to feel like, you know them and we have a connection with them and it can be hard knowing what happened to them in the end, it may be a fine like marriage certificate of live births of their children and then knowing how they live and can be really hard.

We're investigating cold cases, but we're also looking for restorative justice for victims.

We know what happened to them.

And we know most of the perpetrators are.

So we just saw that part.

But we do need to figure out how to get justice for them.

For some of these people.

But the people who killed them.

Trials.

But it wasn't fair.

Now the element of bias.

But what we're finding in terms of the larger element of this violence >> is that it can be sort of interpersonal individual instances, but absolutely first the state sanction, but it comes to police violence.

He's also kind of becoming a commonality as we're looking through.

And I think when we're investigating a lot of these cases, sometimes this alleged criminality was that being black and Kentucky.

It's about knowledge that we can't move forward and people have trust in whatever systems and policy changes and whatever work we do.

If we don't actually knowledge with the past truly was people were hurt.

People were harmed that historical memory lately.

Stars, right, mentally physically on families on communities.

So my hope is that what we were able to do >> is that when we're thinking about things like redlining and looking at the way the law has been created, whether it's tax law or how we developed parks or whether how we're joeys and whatever that is.

This information in this knowledge goes into the minds of the people who are in charge of those things.

If they have them in mind, they'll do better the next time.

>> Faculty say they hope to eventually create a database to house the cases and discuss Kentucky civil rights violations.

There's a new way to learn about the contributions of influential black, Kentuckians, 6 county tourism agencies have launched Kentucky Black Trailblazers and augmented reality experience brings these historic figures to life.

>> Can tell you lasers is a first of its kind, augmented reality experience that tells the story of 19 different black Kentuckians who have not have their story told the state of Kentucky received arpa funding.

That was American rescue plan It's and then the General Assembly appropriated eczema dollars to go to the state's tourism industry.

They can talk about return to some as part of the stipulation for giving up that money.

So you just something that's transformational, innovative.

And we took that to heart and came up with the idea of.

>> Lets talk about Black History month pilot like history to do it in a way that's never been done before.

And that's when the augmented reality idea come into place.

It was about 2 years ago today that we started this project.

And so it has been 2 very full, very busy years in the making.

And we recognize that this is just a a small part of Kentucky's black history.

But we worked with local historians in each of the 6 counties where there are experiences specifically local black historians.

And we said what stories you want to highlight.

Whitney Young Jr who was born in Simpsonville.

It was part of the big 6 lot of work with the king and was really influential civil rights movement.

But his experience is located at which the park right in the heart of some of the bill allies of ours who was one of the first black school teachers in Kentucky.

He founded what became summits.

College little was a civil war veteran.

And so his experience is located at Veterans Memorial Park, which is right across from our historic courthouse on Main Street.

>> And the one that we really want to make sure was highlighted was the Harlem Hellfighters.

>> So they infantry group in one direction.

The most decorated, a country gripped one, but 5 of them were from Shelbyville and are buried in Calvary Cemetery.

>> And after I left.

>> And I didn't know that I grew up here to point Rays with school here and I had no idea.

And so to be able to tell the stories is really a privilege.

>> Selling feature of the Obama rally is that it is engaging for younger generation.

That may not know.

They say history is old, boring and things like that.

This is a way to make it much more interactive and immersive.

The standard is scan the QR code that's happened to experience and they appear in front of you.

I was like a hologram on point and we're thrilled that people are able to experience the whole thing.

We had.

>> Some one another to the Harlem Hellfighters experience to cover cemetery and they didn't realize that some of their family are.

They were related to one of the home fires is highlighted in this experience.

And it was a car on fire.

They didn't know they were buried in that cemetery.

And stuff is just truly a moving.

A lot of tears were shed.

>> This experience is free of charge for the public and all you need is a phone.

But the black community has a long and rich history in Berea Madison County, but not everyone knows about it.

The Brewery Arts Council and a nonprofit called Our Land of Promise are working to change that.

>> It's it's a shared history.

All of us, no matter your race, your background, the black history and worry a lot of the is told.

So this was just a great opportunity to really put that on display.

>> About 2 years ago when I first started here, one of our community members, Kathy Williams approached me about some ideas that she.

Just kind of wanted to throw around for.

Exhibit idea is one of her ideas was how do we show Bree is black community and the history that comes behind that?

So not our typical visual art exhibit, but more gearing towards the humanities exhibit.

>> It just seemed like the perfect fit of how can we bring?

Different parts of communities together, the art world and humanities world of wanting to preserve history and bring it to life.

They'll see the school pictures showing history throughout time right here in Brea at the Virtual Middletown School.

>> The fee history in so many forms and fashion and most of our items have stories to tell them.

We had to reach out to the Senate and the community to get these items.

You're going to see different.

>> photos, family, heirlooms artifacts, some history.

Some of the quotes that we've done with all narration Ys from the people that were either wants was around are still around, but just very, very through various things that's been in the house old of these families.

But I narration is I'm like a kid in the candy store.

Just hand the stories of these descendants it's it's about making that connection.

And that's that foundation.

If you if you think about our elders are relatives once that once they pass those memories, go to and those are all in all a narration is help with that foundation.

But I've been doing it for the past 2 years.

I've traveled even outside the state to connect with us in this that are from this community to condone their actions.

>> Bree is pretty well known for Brea College's history The black community here.

But one thing we've really highlighted here is how separate those 2 things actually are.

And while they do play together a lot, there's 2 totally different stories there of the community members that were the farmers and the backbone to our community in ways we don't realize and the college had a lot of important and how we deal or how we dealt with.

Racial tension of segregation and how it was approached.

I think as a whole in the areas where those combined.

But it's important to tell the stories beyond the college.

And I think for hopefully Kentucky to see broader that their community of well probably has so much.

Black history that they don't even realize that because we don't talk about it.

We've had so much positive feedback after the opening.

We've had a little bit of a 200 people come through our doors, which is record breaking numbers for our gallery personally.

So people want to see and they want to learn and I think they're very excited that they've been able to do that right here in their own town.

>> We thank you for joining us on this special edition of Kentucky.

Addition celebrating the legacy of Doctor Martin Luther King Junior, more PBS programming about the slain civil rights leader follows us tonight.

And we do hope to see you again tomorrow night at 6.30, Eastern 5.30, central for Kentucky edition where we inform connect and inspire subscribe to our Kentucky Edition, e-mail newsletters and watch full episodes and clips at KET Dot Org.

You can also find us on the PBS video app on your mobile device and smart TV.

And we always encourage you to send us a story idea by email to public affairs at K E T Dot Org and follow KET on Facebook X formerly known as Twitter and Instagram to stay in the Loop.

Thank you again, so much for watching.

I'm Renee Shaw.

And until I see you again, take really good care.

Happening now.

♪ ♪