Bertha Par Simmons Whedbee (1876 - 1960) was an activist, suffragist, and first African American woman to become a police officer in Louisville, Kentucky.
Bertha Par Simmons Whedbee (1876 - 1960) was an activist, suffragist, and first African American woman to become a police officer in Louisville, Kentucky.
Whedbee was born as Bertha Par Simmons in West Virginia in 1879. [1] [2] She later became a kindergarten teacher, graduating from the first class of the Colored Kindergarten Association in 1901. [3] [2] [4] She married a physician, Ellis D. Whedbee, in 1898. [2] They moved to Louisville, Kentucky and had four children together. [5] Whedbee became involved in the women's suffrage movement in Louisville. [6]
In 1919 Bertha Whedbee was inspired to become a police officer herself after local police officers arrested her 17-year-old son, Ellis Jr, as a robbery suspect. [2] Later, the officers charged Ellis with disorderly conduct and a $10 fine. [2] Whedbee didn't believe the charges and confronted the police about the charges, where she was then arrested and charged with a $10 fine as well. [2] [7] Bertha's fine was later suspended, but the fine for her son was upheld. [8] [9] The Whedbees filed a suit against the police station master. [2] On March 3, 1922, she presented a petition that she be appointed a police officer. [10] Whedbee went on to become the first African American woman to work for the Louisville Metro Police Department when she started on March 22, 1922. [11] [12] [10] Her mandate was to work only among other African Americans in the community. [10] She worked on the police force until 1927 when she resigned in protest when the other African American officers were dismissed by a new city administration. [13]
Bertha Whedbee died in 1960. [14] She was buried in Louisville Cemetery. [1] There were no headstones for either Bertha or Ellis Sr. Whedbee until they were installed in 2018. [15]
Churchill Downs Incorporated is the parent company of Churchill Downs. The company has evolved from one racetrack in Louisville, Kentucky, to a multi American-state-wide, publicly traded company with racetracks, casinos and an online wagering company among its portfolio of businesses.
The Confederate Monument in Louisville is a 70-foot-tall monument formerly adjacent to and surrounded by the University of Louisville Belknap Campus in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. Relocation of the monument to Brandenburg, Kentucky, along the town's riverfront began November 2016, and was completed in mid-December. The granite and bronze structure was erected in 1895 by the Muldoon Monument Company with funds raised by the Kentucky Woman's Confederate Monument Association. The monument commemorates the sacrifice of Confederate veterans who died in the American Civil War.
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John Breckinridge Castleman was a Confederate officer and later a United States Army brigadier general as well as a prominent landowner and businessman in Louisville, Kentucky.
WKLO-TV was a UHF television station in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, that operated from October 18, 1953, to April 20, 1954.
Mathilde Brundage was an American actress. She appeared in 87 films between 1914 and 1928.
The 1893 Kentucky State College Blue and White football team represented Kentucky State College—now known as the University of Kentucky—as an independent during the 1893 college football season. Led by John A. Thompson in his first and only season as head coach, the Blue and White compiled a record of 5–2–1.
The 1919 Chattanooga Moccasins football team represented the University of Chattanooga as an independent during the 1919 college football season. In their first season under head coach Silas Williams, the Moccasins completed its nine-game schedule with a record of 3–5–1.
Mary Fitzbutler Waring was an American physician, and president of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACW).
The 1947 Louisville Cardinals football team represented the University of Louisville in the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (KIAC) during the 1947 college football season. In their second season under head coach Frank Camp, the Cardinals compiled a 7–0–1 record, won the KIAC championship, and outscored opponents by a combined total of 193 to 63.
The 1949 Louisville Cardinals football team was an American football team that represented the University of Louisville as an independent during the 1949 college football season. In their fourth season under head coach Frank Camp, the Cardinals compiled an 8–3 record. The team was led on offense by Ross Lucia and played its home games at DuPont Manual Stadium in Louisville, Kentucky.
On March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black American woman, was fatally shot in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment when at least seven police officers forced entry into the apartment as part of an investigation into drug dealing operations. Three Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) officers—Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove—were involved in the shooting. Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was inside the apartment with her when the plainclothes officers knocked on the door and then forced entry. The officers said that they announced themselves as police before forcing entry, but Walker said he did not hear any announcement, thought the officers were intruders, and fired a warning shot at them. The shot hit Mattingly in the leg, and the officers fired 32 shots in return. Walker was unhurt but Taylor, who was behind Walker, was hit by six bullets and died. During the incident, Hankison moved to the side of the apartment and shot 10 bullets through a covered window and glass door. According to police, Taylor's home was never searched.
Myrtle Foster Cook was a Canadian-born American teacher, political activist, and clubwoman.
Julia Blackburn Duke Henning was an American suffragist and clubwoman, based in Louisville, Kentucky.
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The 1954 Eastern Kentucky Maroons football team was an American football team that represented Eastern Kentucky State College—now known as Eastern Kentucky University–as a member of the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) during the 1954 college football season. Led by first-year head coach Glenn Presnell, the Maroons compiled an overall record of 8–1–1 with a mark of 5–0 in conference play, winning the OVC title. Eastern Kentucky was invited to the Tangerine Bowl, where the Maroons lost to Omaha.
Madree Penn White was an American editor, educator, businesswoman and suffragist. She was one of the founders of Delta Sigma Theta, and the sorority's second president.
Claudia Riner is an American politician who served in the Kentucky House of Representatives from 1978 to 1981, representing the 36th district. She was the first woman from Madisonville, Kentucky, to hold high public office. Riner was characterized by colleagues in the legislature as a polarizing figure, due to her conservatism and religious activism, but she was also known as a persistent and adept legislator. She proposed multiple bills related to her Christian values, including her most well-known "Ten Commandments law", requiring that a copy of the Ten Commandments be posted in a plaque in every Kentucky classroom. She also proposed bills to teach creation science in public schools, ban the sale and distribution of pornography to minors, and require that misdemeanor offenders compensate their victims.
Jordan Arterburn (1808–1875) and Tarlton Arterburn (1810–1883) were brothers and interstate slave traders of the 19th-century United States. They typically bought enslaved people in their home state of Kentucky in the upper south, and then moved them to Mississippi in the lower south, where there was a constant demand for enslaved laborers on the plantations of King Cotton. Their "negroes wanted" advertisements ran in Louisville newspapers almost continuously from 1843 to 1859. In 1876, Tarlton Arterburn claimed they had taken profits of "30 to 40 percent a head" during their slave-trading days, and that Northern abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe had visited the Arterburn slave pen in Louisville while researching Uncle Tom's Cabin and A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. There is now a historical marker in Louisville at former site of the Arterburn slave jail, acknowledging the myriad abuses and human-rights violations that took place there.
Cary Blackburn Lewis Sr. (1888–1946) was an American sportswriter, newspaper editor, and publicist. He was instrumental in the formation of the Negro National Baseball League (NNL) in the 1920s. Lewis worked at TheChicago Defender, the Courier-Journal, and the Indianapolis Freeman newspapers.