LOUISVILLE, Ky. — In October 1960, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. sat in the Fulton County, Ga., jail although the charges brought against him had been dropped. Louisvillians Carl and Anne Braden were outraged and sent King a telegram of support on Oct. 24.
That telegram and more documents related to Louisville and other parts of Kentucky are part of the King Center’s online digital archive. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Technology for Social Good program made the archive possible.
The University of Louisville will host a traveling exhibit about the imaging project and archive Oct. 21 through Oct. 25 in the east lobby of Ekstrom Library. Hours are 1 p.m. to 8 p.m., Oct. 21; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Oct. 22 through Oct. 24; and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Oct. 25. Admission is free and public.
The interactive exhibit showcases digital images of key documents from King’s correspondence, speeches and sermons. Playing off King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, visitors also can write their dreams on a card and post them on the Dream Wall section of the exhibit. The cards later will be digitized and saved for posterity as part of The King Center’s archive.
UofL is the only Kentucky stop on the exhibit’s current schedule. The exhibit’s content dovetails with UofL’s new multi-year initiative, Project Progress. Starting later this month, the university will have special programming to look back and reflect on what was taking place in the civil rights movement each year from 1963 to 1968 and then look at where society is now.