16-02-2025
Highlands exhibit celebrates Black history
ASHLAND The Highlands Museum and Discovery Center is marking Black History Month with an exhibit, which will run through the end of February.
'Visitors will see many different facets of Black history, including 'An Abridged Black History Timeline' that follows 500 years of African (and African American) history,' curator Heather Whitman said. 'A special section dedicated to Booker T. Washington School, tells the story of Ashland's segregated school.'
She said the display includes background of the song 'Lift Every Voice and Sing,' often referred to as the Black National Anthem. It began as a poem written in 1900 by James Weldon Johnson, a principal at a segregated school in Jacksonville, Florida.
A new section called 'Who Am I?' showcases prolific African Americans from across Kentucky using 23 panels, each devoted to a different influential Black Kentuckians.
There also is a section tracing the evolution of the Black Barbie doll with a case displaying a variety of dolls.
The C.B. Nuckolls Community Center and Black History Museum loaned several pieces for the exhibit, Whitman said.
