Event to celebrate 53-year tenure of civil rights legend and ‘the MVP of Lexington’
For 53 years, P.G. Peeples has constantly showed Lexington not what it was, but what it could be.
He was the very young executive director of the Urban League, which started here in 1971. Although many Lexingtonians somehow got the idea that any organization pushing civil rights was “radical,” he convinced this sleepy, Southern, frequently racist town that civil rights would not lead to anarchy but to a better, more just community.
Since then, Peeples has convinced many more people of the importance of the Urban League’s work. He served on boards and commissions and task forces. Under his leadership, the League built affordable housing many years before politicians started paying it lip service; the League’s youth and education programs helped countless Black Lexingtonians achieve degrees and jobs. He was not afraid to call out racism, which he had to do distressingly often, but he also worked behind the scenes to undo its most noxious effects. He was a mover and shaker, and frequently, a peacemaker.
When he was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004, he spoke courageously about the stigma of the disease for men, and the importance of early diagnosis and treatment.
Now, at 75, he is the second oldest serving director in national Urban League history, and the League is in turn honoring the only leader it has ever known. “A Salute to P.G. Peeples Celebration Banquet” will be Oct. 24 at the Central Bank Center.
“There is no one who has been a more outstanding citizen of Lexington in the last 50 years, the MVP of Lexington,” said sports entrepreneur Jim Host, who considers Peeples a close friend. “In my opinion his greatest asset is his calming influence and leadership and role in civil rights.”
Peeples grew up in Lynch, a segregated coal mining town in Harlan County. He was one of the early cohorts of Black students at UK, graduating in 1968. William Turner, author of “The Harlan Renaissance,” in part about his childhood in Lynch, said Peeples is still his oldest friend, as their fathers worked in the same coal mine and taught them to fish and hunt together. They both attended the Lynch Public Colored School and arrived together at UK.
“Whatever good measure of racial reconciliation the Lexington area enjoys is owed in large part to the work of Porter Geneal Peeples, of whom I am mighty proud to call my lifelong friend,” Turner said.
Host said that Peeples is also a huge UK basketball fan, which led him to a friendship with UK Coach John Calipari, whose foundation is one of the event’s sponsors. There’s even a rumor, Host said, that the UK basketball team might show up.
Sponsorships and individual tickets are still available for the dinner. For more information or to buy tickets, go to https://ullex.org/2022-annual-banquet/.
This story was originally published October 12, 2022 at 12:39 PM.
