Editor’s note: The Kentucky Center for African American Heritage will provide The Courier Journal with history maker features biweekly for the remainder of the year. The center’s goals are to enhance the public’s knowledge about the history, heritage and cultural contributions of African Americans in Kentucky and in the African Diaspora. The center is also a vital, contemporary institution, providing space for exhibitions and performances of all types.
Merv Aubespin
Merv Aubespin (1937-) was born in Opelousas, Louisiana, and is a graduate of Tuskegee University. He credits a visit to Montgomery, Alabama, during college as the inspiration for his lifelong involvement in the civil rights movement. In 1967 he became the first African American to hold the post of news artist at The Courier Journal newspaper. He joined the newsroom staff during the 1968 civil rights unrest in Louisville and later retired after 35 years with The Courier Journal. He is the co-author of a book, “Two Centuries of Black Louisville: A Photographic History.”
A Gold Medal winner in the Best Regional Non-Fiction Category of 2012’s Independent Publisher Book Awards, “Two Centuries of Black Louisville” spotlights Louisville’s 234-year history through the vibrant lens of the black community. With rare photographs spanning Louisville’s history, the book highlights the struggles, heritage and culture of the region’s African American activists and the evolution of race relations. Aubespin is a past president of the National Association of Black Journalists and also the founder of the Louisville Association of Black Communicators.
He was awarded the Distinguished Service to Journalism Award in 1991, given by the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communications. He received the Ida B. Wells Award for his dedication to bringing minorities into the field of journalism.
Check out:See inside Louisville’s newest African American museum
Sadiqa Reynolds
Sadiqa Reynolds (1972- ) was raised in New York City and came to Louisville to earn her bachelor’s in psychology from the University of Louisville and her law degree from the University of Kentucky. Reynolds is the president and CEO of the Louisville Urban League. Her appointment made her the first woman to hold this title in the organization’s history.
Reynolds has a vision for revitalizing Louisville’s West End through her leadership to develop a $35 million indoor track and sports complex at the corner of 30th Street and Muhammad Ali Boulevard. She was the first African American woman to clerk for the Kentucky Supreme Court and served as the chief law clerk for Chief Justice Robert F. Stephens. She previously served as chief for community building under Mayor Greg Fischer.
In January 2008, Reynolds was named inspector general with Louisville Metro Government. In August 2009, Reynolds was sworn in as Jefferson County district judge of the 30th Judicial District, Division 11. Prior to entering the public sector, Reynolds owned and managed a private legal practice. She was a formidable attorney who has argued successfully before the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Reynolds has been recognized by the Louisville Bar Association for work with domestic violence victims and other disadvantaged citizens. She has also been recognized for her advocacy for mental health awareness and restorative justice.
Looking back:Honoring 29 African American history makers from Kentucky
Elmer Lucille Allen
Elmer Lucille Allen (1931- ) was born during the Depression era in a segregated Louisville. Despite facing economic and social barriers, Allen attended Madison Street Junior High School, where she took an interest in the arts. She learned many functional crafts in junior high, such as shoe repair, printing, sewing and carpentry. She graduated from Central High School in 1949 and from Nazareth College (now Spalding University) in 1953.
Allen has broken countless racial and gender barriers. In 1966, she became the first African American chemist at Brown-Forman. After she retired as a chemist in 1997, Allen turned her focus from science to the arts. While working as a chemist, Allen began studying art at the University of Louisville, receiving her Master of Creative Arts with a focus on ceramics and fiber in 2002.
Her talent, hard work and social commitments to equal opportunity are reflected in her work as a chemist and her artwork. Since 2005, Allen has been largely responsible for the art gallery at Wayside Christian Mission, now Hotel Louisville, which offers accessible exhibition space for community artists. In 2019, Detroit artist Brandon Marshall was commissioned by the Imagine 2020 Mural Festival to create a mural celebrating the life of Elmer Lucille Allen. The mural is at South Jackson and Caldwell streets in Louisville’s Smoketown neighborhood, known as one of the first black-founded communities in the city.
Ed Hamilton
Ed Hamilton (1947- ) was born in Cincinnati and raised in Louisville by Amy Jane (Camp) and Edward Norton Hamilton Sr. Hamilton specializes in public art, with his most famous sculpture being “The Spirit of Freedom.” Hamilton graduated from Shawnee High School and continued his education at the Louisville School of Art. He also attended the University of Louisville and Spalding College in the early 1970s.
While working on his certification to teach in the public school system, Hamilton met the late sculptor Barney Bright, whom he worked for as an apprentice and built a lasting friendship with while he continued his quest to eventually open his own sculpting studio. Hamilton has created monuments dedicated to Booker T. Washington, Joe Louis, York (Lewis and Clark Expedition) and the La Amistad revolt by enslaved Africans. But his public work “The Spirit of Freedom” is a national memorial that has achieved worldwide acclaim. The statue is a tribute to the colored soldiers and sailors of the Civil War and stands at 10th and U streets NW in Washington, D.C.
Hamilton tells the story about his journey as an artist in his book, “The Birth of an Artist, A Journey of Discovery.” The book outlines his journey from growing up in Louisville and becoming a sculptor.
Beverly Chester-Burton
Beverly Chester-Burton (1963- ), born to Cozy and Linnes Chester Sr., started her journey as a sharecropper’s daughter from Hopkinsville, Kentucky. She attended the University of Louisville, Spalding University and Western Kentucky University. She holds an education specialist degree, a master’s in teaching K-12, a master’s in counseling and psychology, and a bachelor’s in communication.
Chester-Burton was elected as the first African American to serve on the Shively City Council. During her 10 years in the City Council, Chester-Burton was dedicated to changing the past perceptions of Shively after she lost her first mayoral campaign in 2008. In 2018, she broke down a major barrier in a city known for its racist past by being elected as the first African-American to lead Shively in its 80-year history. With Chester-Burton being elected with 97.8% of the vote, her election created a new legacy.
Chester-Burton is also a teacher in Jefferson County Public Schools and an equity and inclusion facilitator for the National Education Association. Chester-Burton is a role model for many people in Shively, including her daughter, Tiffany Burton. Tiffany watched her mom walk through different political positions, which eventually motivated her to follow in her mother’s footsteps by running and winning a position on Shively City Council. Her civic, community involvements, and recognitions are numerous.
Charles ‘Bud’ Ford Dorsey Jr
Charles “Bud” Ford Dorsey Jr. (1941- ) was born to Charles Sr. and Anna Lewis Dorsey in Louisville. Bud, as he is affectionately called, started following his passion for photography at an early age when he carried around his Kodak Hawkeye Brownie camera taking pictures of friends and events in his neighborhood. Bud volunteered at the studio of Louisville photographer Arthur Evans, in exchange for photographic and film development lessons.
In the 1960s, Bud continued his photography when he joined the Navy, where he shot pictures of far-away places such as Italy, France, Africa and South America. After leaving the Navy, he enrolled at the East Los Angeles College for photography classes. While working full time at the American Synthetic Rubber Company in Louisville, Bud freelanced for the Louisville Defender for 25 years documenting Louisville’s African American communities. He also freelanced for Ebony, Jive, JET and Soul Confession magazines.
His 2017 book, “Available Light: Through the Lens of Bud Dorsey,” resulted in lectures and photographic exhibitions at the Muhammad Ali Center and the Louisville public libraries. Photographs he took while in Senegal, West Africa, became a 2019 public library exhibition. Bud’s most recent exhibition, “Women Hold Up Half the Sky: Women of West Africa,” a two-man photo exhibition by Bud Dorsey and Aukram Burton featuring women from Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria, is on display at the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage.
Mattie Jones
Mattie Jones (1934- ), a native of Memphis, Tennessee, moved with her family to Louisville as a child. Jones’ public activism began not long after she graduated from Central High School in 1951. She attended Indiana University but says she quickly decided it was not safe or welcoming for African American students, so she transferred to the University of Louisville, which had recently desegregated its main campus. While attending U of L, she was denied a work-study position because white students would not work with her.
Jones left U of L to join the Black Workers Coalition to fight for equality in employment. Jones has worked for over six decades as a formidable advocate for equity and social justice. She has organized countless demonstrations and boycotts focused on anti-racism, women’s and workers’ rights, environmental justice, peace and police brutality. In 1973, she was a founding member of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and has helped lead numerous local and national justice operations. In the 1960s she marched against segregation in public schools and for open housing. She worked on a local level with the Kentucky Alliance against Racist and Political Repression, alongside the late Rev. Louis Coleman, Anne Braden and countless others.
She was not only a committed activist, she was a committed wife and mother. Jones and her husband, Turner Harris Jones, had nine children and raised 120 foster children. Jones describes herself as “just another soldier in the army for peace, justice, and equality.”
Robert ‘Bob’ Cunningham
Robert “Bob” Cunningham, (1934-), is a native of Cadiz, Kentucky. His aunt raised him in Paducah, Kentucky, where he grew up in a white neighborhood with all white playmates until he started school. He moved to Louisville in the early 1940s, graduated from Central High School in the early ’50s, and worked briefly for International Harvester before he was drafted into the United States Army in 1957.
While stationed at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, he experienced racist signs like “whites only,” promoting segregation. Bob returned to Louisville after the Army and was swept into the Black freedom movement for social and political change in the 1960s. He joined a local grassroots organization, the Black Workers Coalition, which launched his lifelong involvement in fighting for justice in the workplace, housing, public accommodations and access to finances for African Americans.
During the 1970s, Bob helped form the Black Workers Coalition to challenge racism in the workplace and access to jobs that were denied to Black people. Later, he became the first chairperson of the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression and he remains a board member today. Some of Cunningham’s accomplishments include receiving the LIFT award from the Community Development Corporation for Youth, being inducted into the Kentucky Civil Rights Hall of Fame, receiving the Peace and Justice Award from the Archdiocese of Louisville and receiving the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award from the Justice Resource Center.
Clestine ‘Clest’ Lanier
Clestine “Clest” Lanier (1947- ) is a lifelong resident of Louisville and a longtime community activist. She graduated from Shawnee High School and earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Louisville in political science, and received certification in museum management from the Museum Management Institute in Boulder, Colorado. She is a graduate of the Overseas Studies Program in London, the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute in Minneapolis, and Leadership Louisville.
Clest is the founder of the African American Heritage Foundation, or AAHF, established in 1994 to promote the preservation of African American communities, history and culture in Kentucky. Under her leadership, the organization placed 13 historic markers at sites throughout the community, created an Underground Railroad Tour, and promoted African American artists through the Public Art Sculptures project. The initial work of AAHF led to one of the largest preservation projects in the United States, the renovation of the former trolley maintenance complex into the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage in the historic Russell neighborhood.
In 2019, Clest was inducted into the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights Civil Rights Hall of Fame for her exemplary contributions to human rights. She was also the recipient of Preservation Kentucky’s 2019 Christy and Owsley Brown II Excellence in Public Service to Preservation Award for her outstanding dedication, exceptional contributions and exemplary efforts to preserve Kentucky’s African American heritage, culture, stories, historic buildings and achievements.
Sen. Gerald Neal
Sen. Gerald Neal (1945- ) graduated from Shawnee High School in 1963 and Kentucky State University in 1967 with a bachelor’s in history and political science. He received a J.D. in 1972 from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. Neal was elected to represent District 33 in Jefferson County, is the second African American to serve and the first African American man elected to the Kentucky Senate.
Neal was first elected in 1989 and has since been reelected consecutively in the last 31 years. He was elected Senate Democratic Caucus Chairman in 2014, becoming the first African American elected to a leadership position in the history of Kentucky. With 31 years and counting under his belt as a state senator, Neal is the longest-serving member of the Kentucky legislature.
Neal is a strong voice for African Americans, senior citizens, youth and the disadvantaged, and is a staunch supporter of education, economic development, health care and criminal justice reform. He is the founder of The African American Community Agenda Initiative, which focuses on policy research, development and community education.
Neal has received many honors and commendations for his distinguished service to the community, the legal profession, and as a Kentucky legislator.
Alice K. Houston
Alice K. Houston (1947- ) graduated from the Louisville public school system in 1964. She attended Baldwin College, where she graduated cum laude, and she holds a master’s degree in education from the University of Louisville. In 1969 she married Wade Houston. The two lived in France, where Wade played and coached basketball in Strasbourg. They became a business power couple, launching their first family business as a joint venture that eventually became the largest minority-owned transportation company in North America.
Alice Houston is the president and CEO of Houston-Johnson Inc., a logistics, distribution, material management and order fulfillment company that has been in business since 1994. HJI was nominated by the Ford Motor Company and won the 2011 TriState Minority Supplier Development Council Supplier of the Year Award.
Houston is a tireless supporter of many community initiatives and serves on several boards, including the 55,000 Degrees and 15K Degree Initiative, Simmons College of Kentucky, the James Graham Brown Foundation, the Jefferson County Public Education Foundation, TARC and the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. The next installment of Black History Makers will feature Wade Houston.
Wade Houston
Wade Houston (1944- ) was born in Alcoa, Tennessee. In 1962, Houston became the first African American to sign a basketball scholarship at the University of Louisville, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and was inducted into the Louisville Athletics Hall of Fame in 1999.
In 1970-71, Houston played and coached professional basketball in France. In 1975, Houston became head coach of the Louisville Male High School men’s basketball team, where he compiled a 90-12 record while guiding the team to a state championship. He returned to the University of Louisville in 1976 to become the first African American assistant men’s basketball coach. In 1989, he became the head coach at the University of Tennessee, the first African American head coach in the Southeastern Conference.
In 1994, Houston and his wife, Alice, created Houston-Johnson Inc., a logistic, distribution, material management and order fulfillment company, the largest minority-owned transportation company in North America. The former basketball player and coach became the president of Dry Ice Blasting Technologies, a division of HJI. Wade and Alice Houston have three adult children: Allan, Lynn and Natalie. Allan followed in his father’s footsteps, playing basketball in the NBA for the Detroit Pistons and the New York Knicks.
Dawne Gee
Dawne Gee (1963- ) is a native of Louisville. She attended Virginia Avenue Elementary School, now the West End School, where Gee serves on the board of directors. She graduated from Pleasure Ridge Park High School in 1984 and went on to study at the University of Louisville, where she earned degrees in communications and biology.
Gee joined WAVE 3 News in 1994, where she now anchors the evening news. When she is not delivering the news, Gee spends most of her time giving back to the community through numerous charitable causes. She operates her own nonprofit, A Recipe to End Hunger, a volunteer organization that provides 100% of its proceeds to feeding children through Backpack Buddies and Blessings in a Backpack.
After she met a boy who said he ate paper when his stomach hurt, she published the book “A Recipe to End Hunger,” which was a bestseller on Amazon in 2014. The book features 66 recipes from local and national celebrities. Gee’s goal is to raise awareness and funds to benefit the hundreds of children in Louisville and Southern Indiana who go without food on nights and weekends.
John J. Johnson
John J. Johnson (1945- ) grew up in Franklin, Kentucky, where he experienced segregation and racism. While in high school, Johnson was involved in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Youth Council and as a member of the student government. At the age of 17, he became the youngest president of any Kentucky chapter of the NAACP.
Johnson worked in a factory after his high school graduation. He then went on to work in the area of community development, marketing and research, and human relations. In 1984, he became the director of the Louisville and Jefferson County Community Action Agency until he joined the staff of the NAACP in Baltimore. While in Baltimore, Johnson received his bachelor’s degree in community development and public administration from Sojourner-Douglass College.
Johnson held the position of chief programs officer for many years while working for the NAACP. He also directed a wide variety of programs, including Armed Services and Veterans Affairs; Voter Empowerment; Economic Outreach; Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics; the Prison Project; and the NAACP library. He returned to Kentucky to continue his life’s work fighting for social justice. After working for 12 years as executive director of the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, Johnson retired in 2019.
Renee Campbell
Renee Campbell (1955- ) is from Adairville, Kentucky, where she graduated from Franklin County High School in the Class of 1973. Renee holds a bachelor’s degree from Kentucky State University, a master’s from the University of Louisville, and a doctorate of education from Spalding University.
For over 40 years, Campbell practiced in the areas of education and social work. She has a rich background in community building, working for 20 years as president/CEO of Wesley House Community Services, a 116-year-old social services agency and one of the first transitional programs in the United States. Her life’s work extends beyond our borders to Africa, where in 2005 she was installed as a chief by the Tolon Traditional Council in the village of Tolon, Ghana, West Africa. In Tolon she created, directed and facilitated life-changing programs for women and families. During the summer of 2019, she launched a scholarship program in Tolon that provides 18 educational scholarships for boys and girls, from kindergarten through eighth grade.
Campbell was honored as a ”Woman of Distinction” from the Center for Women and Families, and is a “Muhammad Ali Daughter of Greatness.” Also, Campbell has been featured in “100 Fascinating Louisville Women,” and an “Enterprising Women — Making a Difference” by Business First Magazine.
Eric Curtis Williams
Eric Curtis Williams (1950- ) was born in Louisville. He attended Male High School and finished his postsecondary education at the University of Kentucky’s School of Architecture. As a licensed architect, Williams has followed in the footsteps of Samuel Plato (1882-1957), an African American architect and building contractor noted for his work on federal housing projects and for building at least 38 post offices across the country.
Williams has 30 years of experience working on architectural design, engineering and on-site construction projects. He has served as a senior project manager, project construction manager, architect of record, general contractor and commercial investment real estate broker. Williams has worked on projects including the development of a prototype KFC store and landscaping, Kentucky International Convention Center, Muhammad Ali Center, and KFC Yum restaurant facilities in 17 states.
As the chief international officer at JC Worldwide Connections, Williams has managed projects in Doha, Qatar; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Kuwait; and Iraq. Williams’ affiliations include the American Institute of Architects, National Trust History Preservation, Project Management Institute, Kentucky State Board of Examiners and Registration of Architects, and the City of Louisville Kentucky Building Code Appeals Board.
V. Faye Jones
Dr. V. Faye Jones (1959- ) is a native of Kentucky. She received her bachelor’s in biology from Western Kentucky University before graduating from the University of Louisville School of Medicine in 1985. Jones went on to complete her pediatric residency in the U of L-affiliated Kosair (now Norton) Children’s Hospital.
In 1990, Jones joined the University of Louisville, where she is a tenured professor of pediatrics in the School of Medicine. In 2001, she earned a master’s in public health, followed by a doctorate in epidemiology in 2006, both from the University of Louisville. Jones serves as the associate vice president for health affairs/diversity initiatives, vice chair for the Department of Pediatrics and Inclusive Excellence, and the interim senior associate vice president for the U of L Office of Diversity and Equity.
With more than 30 years of medical experience, Jones’ passion lies in creating a community where health equity is a reality. She is responsible for training future pediatric providers as well as overseeing the integration of equitable and diverse health care standards throughout the U of L campus. Her focus is on attempting to infuse an integrative framework for diversity throughout the four fundamental areas of education: research, workforce development, community engagement, and campus climate.
Raoul Cunningham
Raoul Cunningham (1943- ) was born in Louisville and is a graduate of Male High School and Howard University. Since the age of 14, Cunningham has dedicated his life to civil rights activism. While in high school, he led his first direct nonviolent action campaign with the Youth Council on Christmas Day 1959, when the Brown Theatre would not admit African Americans with mail-ordered tickets to see “Porgy and Bess,” a movie that had a Black cast.
Cunningham continued his activism along with other students from Male and Central High School when they bravely defied the law to demand full access to the stores and lunch counters along Fourth Street. As a Howard University student, Cunningham continued his activism by organizing a Young Democrats chapter and became the president of the District of Columbia Federation of College Young Democrats.
He returned to Louisville to manage the successful campaign to elect Georgia Davis Powers to the Kentucky Senate, and has been involved in government and politics ever since. Cunningham was elected president of the Louisville Branch NAACP in 2004, president of the Kentucky State Conference NAACP in 2014, and to the NAACP board of directors in 2016. He has been inducted into the Kentucky Civil Rights Hall of Fame and is the recipient of the Martin Luther King Freedom Award by the city of Louisville.
Nikki R. Lanier
Nikki R. Lanier (1970- ) is the senior vice president and regional executive of the Louisville Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, serving Louisville, Southern Indiana and Western Kentucky. Lanier earned a law degree from the University of Miami School of Law and a bachelor’s in journalism from Hampton University.
As a Louisville Branch leader, she is responsible for connecting the public, business leaders, community bankers, community development organizations and educators to the Fed. Lanier is committed to supporting marginalized communities in traditionally redlined neighborhoods by providing free resources to learn and teach financial literacy. Lanier is deeply rooted in the Louisville community and serves on many boards, including OneWest, where she is the board’s chair. She also serves as executive board vice president for the Louisville-based Global Economic Diversity Development Initiative, whose mission is “to establish a fund that serves as a worldwide giving choice for racial equity and economic justice initiatives to create generational wealth that meets present and future needs through creative and well-thought-out grant-making perpetually.”
In 2018, Lanier was on the national list of notable financial executives. In 2019, she received the Robert C. Burks Distinguished Business and Leadership Award, and she has received recognition as a “Woman of Influence” by Louisville Business First, one of “20 People to Know in Banking and Finance,” “Forty Under 40,” and as one of the “10 Most Influential Women of Louisville.”
Nat Irvin II
Nat Irvin II (1951- ) grew up in North Augusta, South Carolina, where he graduated from North Augusta High School in 1969. He is a graduate of the University of South Carolina with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a master’s degree in media arts. Irvin is an accomplished composer who also holds a doctorate in music composition from the University of North Texas. Irvin is also a graduate of the Institute for Educational Management at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education.
He is the Woodrow M. Strickler executive in residence, professor of management practice at the University of Louisville’s College of Business, where he has taught change management, leadership, future studies and team dynamics since 2007. Irvin is an author, innovator, futurist, teacher, commentator and founder of “Thrivals @IdeaFestival.” His Thrivals programming began in 2010 and continues to develop thought leaders through programming that attracts global innovators to discuss and develop new perspectives and transformational ideas with the next generation.
Irvin has worked with leadership and management teams of Fortune 100 companies and organizations in strategic conversations on future trends. He has been a commentator for National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition” and an adviser to the TED Challenge.
