The City of Lexington has formed a steering committee to move forward on the effort to recognize historic African American hamlets. Tiffany Brown is the city’s equity and implementation officer. She said the ‘A Sense of Place’ initiative will help remind all Lexingtonians of the importance of these communities.
“They had schools, many of them had schools, many of them have their own churches, their farms, and then they were very vital to the economy, history education and religious cultures of Lexington.”
Property has been purchased and funds are being raised to rehabilitate and renovate some of these areas. Friday, the city announced the new steering committee had raised 130-thousand dollars towards that goal. Then, Brown had an update.
“The Cadentown Missionary Baptist Church also recently donated $1,000 to the campaign as well. So we're at $131,000. And we still have a ways to go. But it's gonna go into restoring that Cadentown Rosenwald and to do some improvements.”
Cadentown is one of the more than 20 Black hamlets identified thus far – and Cadentown Missionary Baptist Church hosted a Juneteenth celebration attended by several people whose descendants formed the community.
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