The next meeting of the Jackson Purchase Historical Society will take place on Saturday, March 7th at the Hotel Metropolitan at 724 Oscar Cross Ave in Paducah, Kentucky, beginning at 10:30 am. The meeting will feature Christopher L. Thornock, an archaeologist and the Heritage Program Manager at Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. The topic will be “African-American Lives and Landscapes on the Lower Tennessee River.”
The African American heritage of the southern United States is rich and much more complex than the commonly discussed topics of plantation slavery and the civil rights movement. Thornock’s presentation delves into the diverse histories of several African American communities, both slave and free, in Western Kentucky along the lower Tennessee River. Among the topics he will discuss are mixed-race farming families with both slave and free members, the substantial labor force of the region’s iron industry both during and after slavery, the displacement of communities, and the biographies of individuals and their families living in Western Kentucky throughout the 1800s and into the 1960s.
“We are very excited to have Christopher Thornock share his research with our members,” JPHS Vice-President Richard Parker said. “He has brought to life a forgotten segment of our local history and has spent countless years researching African American communities on the lower Tennessee River,” Parker concluded.
All meetings of the JPHS are open to the public.
