University of Kentucky Black Studies @ 50 Symposium: Related Archival Documents from the University of Kentucky Archives

On September 19 and 20, 2019, the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences and African American and Africana Studies held a symposium on "Black Studies@50," commemorating the beginnings of what is currently African American and Africana Studies at the university in 1968; honoring the individual students and faculty and the Black Student Union that agitated and advocated for courses on African American history, culture, society, and politics; and exploring  current and future philosophies, topics, and directions.

The University of Kentucky Archives holds several collections with historically relevant documents on the Black Student Union, the Black Studies Committee, and the African American Studies and Research Program.  To support the Black History@50 symposium, this online exhibit offers a small sampling of these documents arranged in chronological order.  The collections they are drawn from can be accessed in the Breckinridge Research Room in the Margaret I. King Library and include:

The Chester Grundy papers, 1971-2009 (accession 2013ua004)

The Doris Wilkinson papers, 1961-2011 (accession 2010ua023)

The University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center general subject files collection (accession 2018ua018)

Documents for this exhibit were selected by Ruth E. Bryan, University Archivist, September 2019.