MOREHEAD, Ky. — Kentucky historian and author Joe Clark, publisher of The Morehead Minute, has released a new book examining a chapter of the Civil Rights Movement that is often overshadowed by events elsewhere in the South.
Between The North and The South: Martin Luther King, Jr. in Kentucky traces the civil rights leader’s appearances in the Commonwealth and explores the role Kentucky played during one of the most transformative periods in American history.
While Martin Luther King Jr. is most commonly associated with places such as Montgomery, Birmingham, Selma, Memphis and Atlanta, his work also brought him repeatedly to Kentucky. He spoke in Frankfort and Louisville, addressed thousands at public gatherings, supported voter-registration efforts and became involved in Kentucky’s battles over civil rights and housing discrimination.
Clark said the idea for the book grew from a simple historical question: Did Martin Luther King Jr. ever speak in Kentucky?
The answer turned out to be much larger than expected.
“I knew about the March on Frankfort, but I really didn’t know the extent of King’s connections to Kentucky,” Clark said. “Once I began researching it, I realized there was a story here that deserved to be told on its own. Kentucky wasn’t simply watching the Civil Rights Movement unfold somewhere else. King came here, spoke here and challenged Kentuckians directly.”
The book begins with King’s 1957 appearance at Kentucky State College in Frankfort, where he delivered the commencement address “Facing the Challenge of a New Age.” It follows his subsequent Kentucky appearances through the next decade, including a massive 1960 gathering at the Jefferson County Armory in Louisville and the historic March on Frankfort on March 5, 1964, when thousands descended on the state capital demanding civil rights legislation.
The narrative also examines Louisville’s Black press and churches, voter-registration efforts, the city’s open-housing struggle and the increasingly difficult political environment King encountered during the final years of his life.
At the center of the book is Kentucky’s unusual position in the national struggle over race.
Kentucky was a border state—neither fully identified with the Deep South nor entirely removed from its systems of segregation and racial discrimination. Clark argues that this made the Commonwealth an important but frequently overlooked setting in which King confronted a different form of resistance: not always the highly visible violence associated with Birmingham and Selma, but delay, gradualism and appeals for patience.
“This isn’t intended to be another biography of Dr. King,” Clark said. “There are already countless excellent biographies. This book asks a much narrower question: What happened when Martin Luther King Jr. came to Kentucky?”
At approximately 48 pages, Between The North and The South is designed as a concise regional history rather than a comprehensive account of King’s life. The book draws upon historical records, archival materials, contemporary reporting and King’s speeches to reconstruct his relationship with the Commonwealth.
Clark, a Morehead-area historian and author, has written extensively about Kentucky and Appalachian history, with much of his work centered on events and people that received limited attention outside the communities where they occurred.
He said Between The North and The South continues that mission.
“Some of the most fascinating history is sitting right in front of us,” Clark said. “We know the national story, but sometimes we don’t know what was happening in our own backyard. Kentucky has its own Civil Rights history, and Dr. King is part of it.”
Between The North and The South: Martin Luther King, Jr. in Kentucky by Joe Clark, Historian, is now available in paperback and Kindle editions through Amazon.
