The Homeplace: Photographs From Historic African American Hamlets In Kentucky Inner Bluegrass Region
In the decade after the Civil War African American settlements sprang up around the horse farms in Kentucky’s six-county Inner Bluegrass Region. These villages, or hamlets, as they have come to be known were originally inhabited by freed slaves who were needed to work on the area farms. Today, many of the residents are descendents of the freed men and women who founded them. In some cases as many as six generations of a family have lived in succession on a “homeplace†in these communities. Some of these hamlets are prospering while the existence of others is tenuous. With each visit I make I am continually told of people and places where “you need to go. “Â