Corbin community group re-examines expulsion of black residents in 1919

Last weekend, I made my way down to 2nd & Main, a small event space in downtown Corbin to see the work of the Sunup Initiative (formerly known as the Corbin Racial Justice Initiative): a group that had some important words to share regarding one of the most dark and shameful chapters in Kentucky’s history.

On Oct. 30, 1919, white residents of Corbin expelled a large number of the town’s African American population via freight car on the L + N Railroad: one horrible instance in a rash of racist violence that overtook the United States that year. Corbin developed a poor reputation in the last hundred years not only for the event itself, but also for the town’s intransigence in recognizing the awful deed and a reluctance to heal the racial divide. Scathing media portrayals of Corbin—the 1991 documentary “The Trouble Behind” and Corbin’s inclusion in James W. Loewen’s 2005 book “Sundown Towns,” to name a few—could not reverse this trend.

The Sunup Initiative, a local community group, working in partnership with the Laurel County African American Heritage Center, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and the UK Appalachian Center, has made important strides to help Corbin come to terms with its history. At the event at 2nd & Main, the group announced to a packed house that Mayor Suzie Razmus and the City Commission had formally recognized the city’s role in the events of 1919, and that Sunup would continue to explore ways to make Corbin more diverse, inclusive, and thoughtful about its troubled past.

While not directly involved in this project, I have seen colleagues’ hard work unfold over the past year. I accompanied the research team on their trip to the Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives this summer, and it was truly inspiring to see the student workers eagerly dive into the boxes of dusty court documents the Sunup Initiative has now made publicly accessible.

To be sure, what these researchers have found is truly heart-wrenching and terrible. One hundred years ago, black residents of Corbin were roused out of bed in the middle of the night and escorted by an angry mob out of town at gunpoint, with little more than the clothes on their backs. White residents who spoke out against the pogrom were met with a similar threat by one of the perpetrators: “Yes we ran them off and we will also run all the dammed sympathizers off if they fool with us.”

Of course the Sunup Initiative has its share of detractors from the community, and unkind words have been exchanged, as one expects nowadays, in the comment sections of local news articles and Facebook posts. As this project has unfolded though, one particular reaction has stuck out in my mind. When students in our Appalachian Studies class discussed the need for this type of reconciliation and historic preservation in local communities, one student posed the simple yet powerful question for Corbin: “What is the point of all this?”

Whether you are an academic historian, a dedicated genealogist, or a concerned citizen, this is worth asking. For academic researchers and preservationists, there is always the temptation to self-aggrandize — to pull rank and say, “I’ve done the work and you haven’t, so take this because it’s good for you.” History can be communicated that way, but it is rarely, if ever, truly learned that way by the recipient.

Members of the Sunup Initiative are not here to bludgeon their neighbors with inconvenient truths. They’ve worked out of love and respect for the community they call home, in the hope that they can shed the humiliation and fear Corbin’s history has built up for them in the past hundred years. Knowing that Corbin is now coming to terms with its past, they believe that the city is all the more equipped to be an inviting and successful place going forward.

Lexington should take notice of Corbin and the Sunup Initiative. After all, there is still work yet to be done in reconciling with this city’s troubling past. Confederate statues can be removed, new memorials can be put in their place, but we must continue to ask if justice has been done.

Carson Benn is a Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of Kentucky.