Frankfort Heritage Lecture Series Pop-Up: Understanding Slavery in Kentucky

Kentucky was the site of one of the most important slave markets in the Upper South. Enslaved Kentuckians played an important role in developing the Commonwealth. Join Dr. Vanessa Holden as she explores this vital role and the ins and outs of how slavery bolstered Kentucky's economy.

Dr. Vanessa M. Holden is an associate professor of History and serves as director of African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky. She is also the director of the Central Kentucky Slavery Initiative. Dr. Holden’s book, Surviving Southampton: African American Women and Resistance in Nat Turner’s Community (University of Illinois Press), is the winner of the 2021 James Broussard Best First Book Prize from the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR). Her writing has been published in Slavery and Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies, Perspectives on History, Process: A Blog for American History, and The Rumpus. Dr. Dr. Holden serves as a faculty adviser on several public history and digital humanities projects including Freedom on the Move and The Digital Access Project (DAP). Her current research focuses on slavery and enslaved people in Kentucky.