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"The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home..."
So begins an American standard, first published as a minstrel song, that became dear to the hearts of millions and ultimately was enshrined as the Kentucky Derby's sonic centerpiece—a popular selling point for Kentucky tourism. Emily Bingham's masterful decoding of Stephen Foster's 1853 ballad reveals that the song was always about slavery and how white Americans wanted to remember it. In this presentation, Bingham will provide an overview of the iconic song’s origins and its path to becoming a powerful part of Kentucky’s culture and brand. For this meeting of the AAGGKY, she will also detail the unexpected role a group of accomplished Indianapolis African American singers (part of the Kentucky Black diaspora) played in cementing Stephen Foster’s place in the American songbook.
So begins an American standard, first published as a minstrel song, that became dear to the hearts of millions and ultimately was enshrined as the Kentucky Derby's sonic centerpiece—a popular selling point for Kentucky tourism. Emily Bingham's masterful decoding of Stephen Foster's 1853 ballad reveals that the song was always about slavery and how white Americans wanted to remember it. In this presentation, Bingham will provide an overview of the iconic song’s origins and its path to becoming a powerful part of Kentucky’s culture and brand. For this meeting of the AAGGKY, she will also detail the unexpected role a group of accomplished Indianapolis African American singers (part of the Kentucky Black diaspora) played in cementing Stephen Foster’s place in the American songbook.
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Save a seat for the bus tour... only a few remaining
The African-American Genealogy Group of KY offers for the first time, a bus tour of historic Central Kentucky sites where free and enslaved people lived and worked...
Now on Sale - VERY Limited Seating - Reserve yours NOW
Past 3rd Saturday presentations - Click to view
"I too am of the hills, my folks have corn rowed tobacco, laid track, strip mined, worshipped and whiskied from Harlan to Maysville, old Dunbar to Central...We put the heat in the hot brown and gave it color.
Indeed some of the bluegrass is black."
- from Kentucke by Frank X Walker
Poet Laureate of Kentucky 2013 - 2015