Ku Klux Klan (1915-)

Life in the 1920's. Hensfeld comments on the KKK, the Red Scare, Prohibition and his personal observations.

Narrator talks about racism and the Klan in Kentucky.

Narrator, the Great Titan of Jefferson County, talks about racism and Klan in Kentucky.

The KKK in Kentucky and the role of the Kentucky Alliance in Jefferson County.

Narrator talks about struggle against racism and Klan in Kentucky.

Howard Owens, born in 1948 in Pambloff, Arkansas, moved to Louisville because of his father's work as a preacher at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church at age 5. In this interview, Owens talks about his father's work as a civil rights activist in the city prior to his own work during the 1960s following his graduation from high school as well as his work and activism during the civil rights movement from the end of the 1960s up until the 1980s. Topics include: the nationalist fringe groups participating in Louisville during the civil rights movement, his activism during college in Wilberforce, Ohio, his work as a teacher in Louisville with children with learning disabilities, the groups during the 1970s in Louisville including the Black Workers Coalition and Black Protective Parents, busing and the problems that faced busing within the communities and the city, other groups such as the Jtown Challengers and the Blacks United to Motivate Progress, his experience at a Klan rally that took place off of Preston Hwy, issues that arose after busing including police brutality and equity in hiring of minorities, the Alliance Against Racism and Political Oppression, the Fred Harris case, the Lindsay Scott case, and a case involving the Black Panther Party that all took place in Louisville.

Quisenberry answers questions about his personal life and his recollections of various topics such as; WWI, the KKK, the Red Scare and politics.

Mr. and Mrs. Schmitt discuss their personal history including life in Louisville in the early 1900s; what they remembered about WWI, the KKK, Prohibition and numerous other topics.

Ben Shobe was born in 1920 in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He grew up in a rural mountain town called Middlesboro. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1941 from Kentucky State College (now Kentucky State University), a historically Black school in Frankfort. During his time at Kentucky State, he witnessed the Ku Klux Klan marching through downtown Frankfort and then proceed to burn crosses in view of the campus. After graduating, Shobe attended law school at the University of Michigan. He graduated from the University of Michigan with his law degree in 1946 and returned to Louisville, Kentucky to practice as a trial attorney. He initially joined the practice of his friend, Charles W. Anderson, Jr., who was the first Black legislator voted to serve in the South. He served as a trial lawyer for many years before being elected as the Judge of the Louisville police court in 1973.

In the interview, Shobe mentions some of the cases and issues he worked on during his career. Louisville was an incredibly segregated city during the start of his career and he immediately joined the NAACP and went to work helping to desegregate parts of the city. One such case was the desegregation of the Louisville city parks. He took the case to the U.S. Circuit Court in Cincinnati, Ohio and successful argued that the parks were in fact not "separate but equal" due to the disparity in resources available at the white parks, compared to those available at the single Black park in the city. He also recounts various interactions with members of the NAACP, such as Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkins, who came to the local Louisville chapter from time to time to go over legal advice and strategy for the segregation cases. Shobe was also involved in various levels on the issues of desegregation at the University of Louisville, the Louisville Bar Association, and the Jefferson County Medical Society.