Historical markers bring Kentucky Black Trailblazers Oliver Lewis, Muhammad Ali to life
Imagine strolling up to a historical marker, pulling out your phone and hearing from famous jockey Oliver Lewis, boxer Muhammad Ali, civil rights icon Whitney Young, or the Harlem Hellfighters.
You can do just that at a new experience that honors Kentucky Black Trailblazers.
Lewis, who won the first Kentucky Derby and is buried in Lexington’s No. 2 Cemetery along with other prominent Black jockeys of the period, is one of 19 Kentuckians honored.
The Kentuckians honored include Muhammad Ali and Oliver Lewis, both in Louisville, and civil rights leader Whitney M. Young Jr. and the Harlem Hellfighters, both in Shelbyville.
Visitors scan QR codes on special markers at the tourism sites and an augmented reality experience launches on the phone screen and the Kentucky Black Trailblazer begins to talk.
The videos are fairly short, with a little biographical information that may have been left out of the history books until now.
The video for members of the Harlem Hellfighters, buried in Shelby County, tells how they joined up to fight Germans during World War I and ended up fighting segregation too. Eventually, the all-Black regiment fought under French command and was one of the most decorated regiments of the war. “We even were the first ones to introduce jazz music to France,” the officer in the video says.
ShelbyKY Tourism President & CEO Janette Marson spearheaded the project, which went live in July.
Marson said she’d long wanted to do something with augmented reality, but it was just too expensive. Then came the opportunity for federal grants.
“People were throwing around different ideas, and someone mentioned a Black history trail, which is interesting, but there are several. What would make this different?” she said. They found Los Angeles-based Tactic Studio, which created the 19 Crimes wine bottles with labels that come to life. Tactic was intrigued by the idea.
“We are thrilled to introduce the Kentucky Black Trailblazers Experience, an initiative aimed at honoring and preserving the extraordinary contributions and stories of our local heroes,” Marson said in a news release. “Through the integration of Augmented Reality technology, visitors are offered the unique opportunity to travel back in time and encounter the personal histories of these remarkable individuals who left an indelible mark on our cultural heritage.”
Using more than $1 million in federal grants for tourism, the Kentucky counties and NIMBUS advertising agency, Louisville’s largest Black-owned agency, which did much of the research for the project, were able to come up with “something transformational,” Marson said.
She said they’ve been getting analytics regularly from Tactic, and “thousands of people have activated the experiences,” Marson said in an interview.
Could the project expand?
“We’re open to it but haven’t talked about more augmented reality experiences yet,” she said. Instead, they are looking at different ways to leverage the interest into more in-depth exploration of Black history in the region.
“We want the project to live on,” she said. “There is a plan for it to continue, not to stop here.”
There are similar historical virtual experiences in Lexington and Louisville, but this effort is more widespread, encompassing six different counties. In Lexington, the “I Was Here” project pairs history with public art installations at 24 sites around downtown illustrating Kentucky’s experiences with slavery. In Louisville, the “Footprints Through Time” is part of The (Un)Known Project that surfaces the history of the TransAtlantic slave trade through the state.
The experiences are free. They were created by Tactic over two years for tourism officials in Shelby County, Louisville, Oldham County, Bardstown, Elizabethtown and Shepherdsville-Bullitt County and received federal ARPA grant funds distributed by the Kentucky Department of Tourism.
Kentucky Black Trailblazers and where to find them
Bardstown-Nelson County:
▪ Daniel Arthur Rudd
▪ Dorsey Wickliffe
▪ Mack Rowan
Oldham County:
▪ Alexa Beaumont, CO E 116 USC
▪ Eliza Brooks
▪ Henry Bibb
Elizabethtown-Hardin County:
▪ First Black Baptist Church
▪ General Braddock
▪ Margaret “Ma” Collier
Shelby County:
▪ Elijah P. Marrs
▪ Harlem Hellfighters
▪ Whitney M. Young Jr.
Louisville:
▪ Lyman T. Johnson
▪ Mary Cunningham Smith
▪ Muhammad Ali Center
▪ Oliver Lewis
Shepherdsville-Bullitt County
▪ Annie Reed
▪ Mattie Owens
▪ Reverend C.H. Parrish
