Ashland Honors African Americans in the Revolutionary War with New Exhibit

Ashland Honors African Americans in the Revolutionary War with New Exhibit

Gwen Akers

The Ashland Beacon

This Friday, the C.B. Nuckolls Community Center and Black History Museum will celebrate their new exhibit as a part of Ashland’s America 250 celebration with a reception at the Highlands DO!zeum. The exhibit showcases the varying roles of African Americans in the Revolutionary War.

The C.B. Nuckolls Community Center and Black History Museum was founded in 2022 by history enthusiasts Darrell Smith and Bernice Henry. The museum actually began with the creation of the Ashland, Ky. Black History page on Facebook, which has since grown to hold more than 9,000 pictures and articles celebrating African American history in the region.

“In 2020, I decided to start the Ashland, Ky. Black History page on Facebook because I noticed a lot of the Black history in Ashland was dying off. People would pass away, things would get thrown away, pictures, information,” explained Smith. “I had always dreamt about having a Black History museum, and my great-aunt Bernice Henry is co-founder of the museum. She actually was able to get the building for us, so that’s how I started the museum itself. I’m very, very proud of it. I created it, designed it, everything myself.”

Since the opening of the museum in 2022, the work of the C.B. Nuckolls Community Center and Black History Museum has only continued to expand and highlight the important roles of African Americans in our community and across the world. Inspired by Smith’s time serving on the City of Ashland’s America 250! Committee, their newest exhibit does just this, narrowing in on the varying roles African Americans served in the Revolutionary War.

“I try to bring up exhibits and things that you don't think about, things that are hidden in a way, just like the one that I'm doing regarding African Americans in the Revolutionary War. It's been talked about, but I wanted to do an exhibit about it because I think it's very important, especially for the country's 250th anniversary,” explained Smith.

The exhibit focuses on bringing to light these stories, discussing African Americans and their roles as soldiers, sailors, spies and all the different ways they were serving at the time. It also chronologizes these stories in the larger context of the Revolutionary War, illustrating the causes, the various court cases that were coming out of England at the time, Dunmore’s Proclamation and the story of Crispus Attucks, the first casualty of the American Revolution.

Teresa Hardesty, Executive Assistant of the museum, became involved recently through her role as Chapter Regent of the Poage Chapter of the DAR. For her, the exhibit encourages viewers to think deeper about the American Revolution and ask the questions that need to be asked.

“I was just really excited about the content he [Smith] had put together and the concept of showing the internal conflict, the big decisions that African Americans had to make. I realized all American patriots had to make that big decision, ‘Do I remain a Loyalist? Do I side with the British, or do I throw in with the Americans?’” detailed Hardesty. “But what Darrell had put together, I just found really impactful because it emphasized that for African Americans, the decision was even bigger than that because it impacted not just their life and their pursuit of happiness, their property and their livelihood, but their very liberty at its core.”

In partnership with the Highlands DO!zeum, the exhibit’s reception will be this Friday, Aug. 28, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. and will feature a Revolutionary War reenactor from Portsmouth, OH., who will share about the daily life of a soldier and offer guests the opportunity to get a closer look at the tools and items soldiers would have used. The exhibit will be on display through Sept. 30.

For more information about the C.B. Nuckolls Community Center and Black History Museum, you can find them on Facebook or visit their website at ashlandblackhistory.com.