Louisville Confronts Its Redlining Past and Present

The phrase “sold down the river” came from Louisville, Kentucky, where the enslaved were traded in one of the largest slave markets of the 19 century. The Louisville Slave Pens, located in the city’s downtown, held and exported enslaved black laborers to large plantations in the Deep South via the Ohio River. As the website for the new online mapping project Redlining Louisville states, “These slave pens represent the origins of the black residential experience in Louisville.”

By the early 20 century, when African Americans began settling in Louisville in droves after escaping racial terror in the South, their living experiences had changed only sightly. They owned homes, but were trapped in unlivable conditions. And it was kept that way thanks to the redlining policies created by the city, the private lending sector, and even the federal government. Redlining Louisville chronicles that process, and it’s been adopted by the city of Louisville to draw more attention to this grim chapter in the city’s history.