Reckoning, Inc.

Reckoning, Inc. is 501(c)3 nonprofit organization whose mission is to examine the legacy of slavery in America, especially in Kentucky, and to create ways for communities to engage with this information through research projects, media productions, educational curricula, online content, and other means.

The Reckoning Radio and Podcast Series

The Reckoning is a public radio and podcast series which traces the history and lasting impact of slavery in America by looking at how the institution unfolded in Kentucky. Learn more

Kentucky U.S. Colored Troops Project

We have researched the lives of hundreds of Kentucky’s Black Civil War soldiers to create a set of primary source documents for each man and his family, coupled with a detailed family tree. We have created a searchable database to house these resources, and you can also find basic information for over 20,000 Kentucky soldiers for whom we have found military records in a spreadsheet. We have developed educational curricula about the experiences of Kentucky’s U.S. Colored Troops. We have also commissioned a series of Soldier Stories from African American writers, many of which feature photographs of individual soldiers and archival documents relating to their military service and their lives after the Civil War.

Black Ancestor Database

For many African Americans, it is extremely difficult to learn the identities of their enslaved ancestors. We are pleased to share with you what we believe to be truly a game-changing resource for African Americans with Kentucky roots searching for their ancestry. For the past 12 years, an historian named Charles Lemons has assembled a collection of information about Black people who lived in Kentucky during the early 19th Century. The collection currently contains over 90,000 records about Black people, both enslaved and free, who lived throughout Kentucky. It includes data from censuses, wills, tax records, religious records, and military sources. You can begin your search or browse the database here.

The Kentucky Enslaved Church Records Project

During the slavery era in Kentucky, many religious institutions kept records that mentioned the names of enslaved people. To begin this project, we have digitized a set of baptismal records for Catholic parishes in Central Kentucky that were translated from the original Latin. These baptismal records generally include the name of the child, the name of the mother, the name of the mother’s enslaver, and at least one Godparent. So far, our staff has digitized baptismal records for over 4,000 enslaved children from 24 Louisville-area churches. These records have been placed in a database that can be searched, both by children’s and enslaver’s names, and browsed by church and by county. You can begin your search or browse the database here.

Curricula

Reckoning, Inc. has created free social studies and English/ Language Arts curricula for elementary, middle, and educators. These include social studies curricula about both slavery and the experience of Black Civil War soldiers, as well as text sets about Black Civil War soldiers for use in English and Language Arts classrooms. Learn more here.

Oral Histories of Formerly Enslaved Kentuckians

We have compiled a collection of over 100 oral histories of people enslaved in Kentucky, which can be searched by keyword and geographic location. You’ll find these oral histories here.

We sincerely thank our funders for their generous support!

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