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Kentucky Governor Ned Breathitt signs the State’s Civil Rights Act. It is recognized by Martin Luther King, Jr., as “the strongest and most important comprehensive civil-rights bill passed by a southern state.” It ends racial discrimination in public places throughout the state, and, on the recommendation of Republican Representative Jesse Warders, the only Black member of the General Assembly, repeals dead-letter segregation laws including the “Day Law.”

The National Civil Rights Act is passed into public law and prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Freedom March on Frankfort, KY. 10,000 people, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights leaders, march in peaceful protest against the Kentucky legislature’s failure to support a bill for the removal of racial barriers in public accommodations.

Following a successful suit brought against Jessamine County Board of Education by a group of African-American students in September 1962, which argued that the county’s school system remained segregated and Black educational facilities were inferior to those of white county schools, Black and white children attend public school together for the first time in Jessamine County history.

The “Day Law” becomes illegal under the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which rules that the racial segregation of public schools is unconstitutional.

The “Day Law” is amended to permit individual institutions to enrol Black students seeking to undertake courses not otherwise available at Kentucky State College. Among several other colleges, Berea College opts to admit Black students.

Louisville, KY, attorney, civil rights leader and Republican candidate Charles W. Anderson, Jr., is the first African American to be elected to the Kentucky legislature. He serves until 1946, and works to pass legislation equalizing teachers’ pay regardless of skin color; outlawing public hanging in Kentucky; and providing state aid for African Americans seeking degrees in higher education out-of-state due to Kentucky’s segregation laws.

The Colored Soldiers Monument (also known as the African American Soldiers Monument) is dedicated in Frankfort’s Green Hill Cemetery by the George M. Monroe Chapter 8, Kentucky Colored Corps, a division of the Women’s Relief Corps of the Grand Army of the Republic. The monument honors 142 Black men from central Kentucky who mustered into the Federal army at Camp Nelson and gave their lives for the Union cause.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) founds a branch in Louisville, KY to mobilize protests against lynching and violence against African Americans, and to challenge new laws furthering segregation.

The Fee Memorial Church is built and dedicated by the African American congregation established by Fee at Camp Nelson, and which continued within the Ariel/Hall community. The Church is in regular use until the congregation disbands in the 1990s.

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