Person For The Week: Its A Reporter Named Joe Gerth.

For centuries, Kentuckians knew they had a problem with race. Its history is replete with instances of this. Read this letter to the Editor.

A quick Kentucky history shows the following as a guide:

Kentucky was a slave state.

Kentucky participated in segregation with its own Jim Crow laws and Negro codes.

Kentucky's people voted against the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery in 1865.

They voted against the 14th Amendment, requiring states to provide all "people" in them equal protection of the law and due process of the law in 1867.

And voted against the 15th Amendment, giving former slaves the right to vote in 1869.

Kentucky's people did not ratify those amendments until 1979, 110 years after the last was ratified by other states.

More:

Kentucky, which stayed neutral -- well actually it was some parts of Kentucky, particularly Louisville and Berea which stayed neutral. The other parts of Kentucky, particularly the Southern and Western parts (Bowling Green, Warren County, was the CONfederate capital of Kentucky, after the CONfederates met in Russellville, Logan County, to form a CONfederate state of Kentucky --, eventually joined the CONfederacy AFTER the Civil War.

And when its son, Abraham Lincoln, ran for office as a Presidential candidate, and when it became clear to Kentuckians that he might abolish slavery, Kentucky vilified him, and less than one percent of Kentucky citizens voted for him.


Circa 2008, and you have the presidential campaign of a Black Man (Abraham Lincoln MUST be smiling from ear to ear) and Kentucky's racism rears its UGLY head once again, and many Kentuckians OPENLY DECLARE that they voted against Obama (at the indirect urgings of BILLARY Clinton) because of his race.

To change Kentucky's attitude towards folks who by their skin color look different than the 90% majority Whites, we URGENTLY need a discussion on race as a BIG problem in need of a SOLUTION.

Recently, for those of you who have not heard or read about it, it was started this week by Courier-Journal reporter Joe Gerth, who is our UNDISPUTED person for the week.