Black Homecoming Exhibit Highlights Nearly 200 Years of Black Family and Community Life
The Filson Historical Society in Old Louisville is shining a light on the meaning of family through its new exhibit, Black Homecoming. The display brings together almost 200 years of photographs, heirlooms, and artifacts from Kentucky’s earliest Black families and community leaders.
The exhibit celebrates nine Black families and several historic Black organizations that helped shape Kentucky’s cultural and social history. The collection redefines family beyond bloodlines, showing how kinship and unity in Black communities were formed through shared struggle, creativity, and resilience.
“We wanted to touch on the different communities that can make a family that aren’t necessarily who you’re born into,” said Hailey Brangers, assistant curator of photographs and prints at The Filson. “Like how you can create a family from other things.”
Redefining the Meaning of Family in Black History
Originally, Black Homecoming was designed to highlight well-known Black families who contributed to Kentucky’s history. But the project evolved into something deeper. Jacqueline Hudson, the Filson’s African American history program manager, said the team wanted to show how Black communities across generations built family in different ways — through neighborhoods, churches, schools, and social clubs.
“Family reunions, funerals, and any type of event where Black folks come together, it’s a homecoming somehow,” Hudson said.
The exhibit includes photos of Kentucky religious groups, early community organizations, and sports clubs that became centers of connection and belonging during times when segregation and discrimination tried to divide them. Each image captures how Black Kentuckians turned shared experiences into enduring legacies.
Honoring Black Greek Organizations and Lifelong Bonds
A key feature of Black Homecoming honors historically Black Greek-letter organizations, collectively known as the Divine Nine. During the 20th century, these fraternities and sororities were founded to support the academic and social success of Black college students.
Among the artifacts displayed are items from Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. Hudson, a proud Delta member, described how these organizations created sisterhood, mentorship, and empowerment.
“The reason why I wanted to be in this organization is being in a group of like-minded Black women,” Hudson said. “We’re about service, scholarship, and social action. Having that common bond drives me.”
Spotlight on Kentucky’s Black Trailblazers
The exhibit also features the life and work of influential Kentuckians who helped shape the state’s history. One section honors Samuel Plato, a groundbreaking Black architect who designed and built post offices, schools, and housing projects across Louisville. Another section celebrates Carridder Jones, a playwright and historian who documented Kentucky’s historic Black hamlets — rural settlements established by formerly enslaved people after the Civil War.
Visitors can trace the achievements of the Hammonds and Mortons, descendants of Elmer Lucille Allen — Brown-Forman’s first Black chemist and a pioneering figure in science and art. Allen, now 94, donated some of her family’s oldest photographs, some dating back to the 1870s.
Preserving Generations of Black Legacy
Archivist and author Charlene Hampton Holloway’s contribution to the exhibit adds a deeply personal touch. Her grandfather, Charles D. Whitlock, owned Louisville’s first Black florist shop. A photograph of her sitting beside him as a child now hangs in the gallery.
“I just felt so honored to see my grandfather,” Hampton Holloway said tearfully.
For her, collecting and sharing her family’s history is more than a passion — it’s a calling. A lifelong activist, she joined the NAACP at 13 and took part in sit-ins during the 1960s. Over the decades, she has gathered photos, documents, and stories that trace her family’s civic and cultural impact across generations.
“Any time you can donate something that’s of great history and value, it’s just hard to describe the pleasure and fulfillment of my life,” she said.
A Continuing Celebration of Black Heritage
Black Homecoming is part of the 2025 Louisville Photo Biennial, which uplifts visual art and photography from Louisville, Southern Indiana, and central Kentucky. The exhibit runs through February and continues to inspire visitors to reflect on the richness and depth of Black family life across two centuries.
“Hopefully people are coming and still learning about Louisville history through these families and how they helped build their communities,” Brangers said.
