Baptists

Henlee Barnette talks about his experiences witnessing racism and acting as an advocate for racial equality. He formed Clergy for Open Housing and participated in civil rights marches. He talks about the Southern Baptist involvement in civil rights, particularly in Louisville, Kentucky.

Mrs. Butler discusses her recollections of Simmons University beginning around 1909; the General Association of Kentucky Baptists (formerly the General Association of Colored Baptists in Kentucky); and the American Baptist newspaper beginning around the 1930s; I. Willis Cole, editor of the Louisville Leader; and Reverend William H. Ballew of the General Association of Kentucky Baptists.

The eldest son of the Reverend H. Wise Jones, who was the minister of the Green Street Baptist from 1912 until 1950, discusses the history of the church, the role that religion and the church played in his life and the lives of Blacks in Louisville. He also discusses the role that the Black Baptist church played in the 1950s and 1960s civil rights movement in Louisville and the United States.

Dr. Parrish discusses his father, Charles H. Parrish, Sr., who was a Baptist minister and president of Simmons University, a black Baptist college in Louisville. Parrish also discusses his own life and work, including his time teaching at Simmons, at Louisville Municipal College (University of Louisville's college for African Americans under segregation), and finally at the University of Louisville after the Municipal College closed and UofL integrated. Dr. Parrish was the only member of Municipal's faculty who was offered an appointment at UofL following LMC's closure, becoming UofL's first African American faculty member. He describes this experience as well as his ongoing research interests.

The Reverend Sanderson is a 52-year-old Black man, a long-time resident of the Parkland area. He discusses his life, the desegregated Armed Forces during World War II, and his struggles to achieve training as a mechanic after the war. He also discusses the Parkland area and the changes he has seen in the area over the years. He became a minister in the mid-1960s at Centennial Baptist Church of Louisville.