Documenting Racial Violence in Kentucky
Documenting Racial Violence in Kentucky (DRVK Project) is a digital archive of biographies, maps, timelines, educational materials, and transcribed articles. The DRVK’s project team came together around a key purpose: humanizing lynching victims beyond accounts that are heavy on statistics and light on personal narrative. As the projects grows, the DRVK”s seeks to expand its reach to make this data available and publicly accessible. The project team tries to use online sources that are free and open to the public. Where we can’t find or use free materials (usually due to copyright restrictions), we offer transcribed articles for each lynching victim on the transcription database.
Click here to start your search of biographies.
Click here to start your search of transcribed articles.
The project goals are to:
Refute long-standing, but false claims that a milder form of racism existed in Kentucky than in other southern states. This project researches and develops biographies of every person who was lynched in Kentucky between 1880 and 1955 using historical tools like census record data, birth and death certificates, and newspaper articles.
Encourage cooperation across the Commonwealth as community members come to terms with the events of the past, memorialize injustice, and encourage reconciliation.
Provide undergraduate students with essential experiential learning and encourages career readiness. Student interns practice the detective work that archival research requires, learning to use microfilm, census records, court transcripts, city directories, property deeds and more, under the careful direction of professor advisors.
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The Commonwealth Institute of Black Studies (CIBS) serves as the administrative host for Documenting Racial Violence in Kentucky. To find out more about other projects at CIBS, please click here for the CIBS website.
To speak with a specialist about Documenting Racial Violence in Kentucky, click here.
FACULTY TEAM
Melanie Beals Goan, Ph.D., August 2021 to the Present
History Interns Supervisor and website content editor. Specialist in Kentucky history, Appalachian history, women and gender in Kentucky, healthcare, undergraduate career development.
Nikki Brown, Ph.D., August 2021 to the Present
Managing editor. Specialist in African American women’s history, race and visual culture, Jim Crow laws, and long Civil Rights Movement of the 20th Century
Jennifer Hootman, MLIS, M.A., August 2021 to the Present
Librarian, Digital Design and Data Management. Specialist in Digital Scholarship, History
Lynn Roche Phillips, Ph.D., August 2021 through May 2022
Geography Interns Supervisor and website content editor. Specialist in cartography, ARC/GIS, sprawl, urban planning, growth management, political culture
2023-2024 Academic Year
STUDENT INTERNS
Bridan Braun
Research Co-Editor, Article transcriber. Major: History. Graduation: Spring 2025
Andrew Chan
Research Co-Editor, Article transcriber. Major: History. Graduation: Spring 2025
Lexxi Colbert
Research Co-Editor, Article transcriber. Major: History. Graduation: Spring 2026
Katie Craig
Research Co-Editor, Article transcriber. Major: History. Graduation: Spring 2025
Jordan Grady
Research Co-Editor, Article transcriber Major: History. Graduation: Spring 2025
Hayden Hancock
Research Co-Editor, Map creator. Major: History. Graduation: Spring 2025
Kailly Oum
Research Co-Editor, Article transcriber. Major: History. Graduation: Spring 2025
Ariane Ribiero
Graduate Intern, Research Co-Editor, History, MA. Graduation: Spring 2024
Grace Yi
Research Co-Editor, Article transcriber Major: History. Graduation: Spring 2026
Martin Alfaya
Research Co-Editor and Data specialist. Major: History. Graduation: Fall 2023
Alana Blackman
Research Co-Editor, Essay on Ida B. Wells and journalism in the 1890s, Major: History. Graduation: Spring 2024
Alyssah Robinson
Research Co-Editor. Major: History. Graduation: Spring 2025
Myla Roper
Research Co-Editor. Major: History. Graduation: Spring 2025
Sources
FREE TO ACCESS
FREE-MIUM
FREE Through public / university libraries