Today's Articles

People, Locations, Episodes

Sun, 06.01.1828

Kentucky in Africa is Founded

Kentucky in Africa Flag

*The founding of Kentucky in Africa is celebrated on this date in 1828.  This colony, located in present-day Montserrado County, Liberia, was settled by American freedmen, many formerly enslaved Africans.

As a Kentucky state affiliate of the American Colonization Society, members raised funds to transport Black people from Kentucky to Africa. The Kentucky Society bought a 40-square-mile (100 km2) site along the Saint Paul River (quite near the site of the present-day capital city of Monrovia) and named it Kentucky in Africa. Clay-Ashland was the colony's main town.

Notable residents of Kentucky in Africa include William D. Coleman, the 13th President of Liberia, whose family settled in Clay-Ashland after immigrating from Fayette County, Kentucky, when he was a boy. Alfred Francis Russell, the 10th President of Liberia, also resided in Clay-Ashland. Liberia annexed a part of Africa in about 1847.

New Poem Each Day

Poetry Corner

Hey Cool Papa, I see picture of you in your later years Tall black skin withered, straight, proud. You must have been a streak of black gold flashing around... FOR COOL PAPA BELL by Tom Dent.
Read More