Resources

---

GENERAL RESOURCES

 

WKU Hilltopper Heritage: Buildings & Grounds

WKU Hilltopper Heritage is a set of links to sources regarding the history of the university including biographies of faculty, staff and alumni, photographs and departmental histories. 

---

RESOURCES RELATED TO SLAVERY AND CONFEDERATE CONNECTIONS

 

 

Confederates in Our Attic: A Campus Conversation (long guide) includes information provided by Dr. David Lee, University Historian, and Dr. Margaret Gripshover, Professor of Geography, as part of WKU’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Workgroup’s Deliberative Dialogue for fall 2020. This document provides information on the Slavery and Confederate Connections of Robert Ogden, Pleasant J. Potter, and Charles J. Van Meter. Updates to this document can be found in the document titled Slavery and Confederate Connections: Robert Ogden, Pleasant J. Potter, and Charles J. Vanmeter. 

 

Confederates in Our Attic: A Campus Conversation (short guide) includes information provided by Dr. David Lee, University Historian, and Dr. Margaret Gripshover, Professor of Geography, as part of WKU’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Workgroup’s Deliberative Dialogue for fall 2020. This document provides a summary of information on the Slavery and Confederate Connections of Robert Ogden, Pleasant J. Potter, and Charles J. Van Meter. Updates to this document can be found in the document titled Slavery and Confederate Connections: Robert Ogden, Pleasant J. Potter, and Charles J. Vanmeter. 

 

Slavery and Confederate Connections: Robert Ogden, Pleasant J. Potter, and Charles J. Vanmeter

This document prepared by Dr. David Lee, University Historian, provides an updated short reference. 

 

---

 

RESOURCES RELATED TO JONESVILLE

 

Where’s Jonesville? How the Destruction of Jonesville Left a Legacy of Housing Discrimination in Bowling Green, KY - Written by George Carpenter in 2014,  Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects. 

https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/stu_hon_theses/443

Abstract - Jonesville was a small tight-knit African-American community in Bowling Green, Kentucky with a unique cultural identity. Family-oriented and extremely self-sufficient, Jonesville thrived as a prime example of southern black culture in the mid 20^th century. However, Jonesville did not stand a chance placed against a powerful local institution. In the late 1950s and early 1960s the community was destroyed to create space for an expanding Western Kentucky University. Fueled by the entirely unjust urban renewal legislation, Kentucky Project R-31, Jonesville was wiped from the Bowling Green map. Due to locally sanctioned discriminatory action, the displaced citizens of Jonesville were forced into specific areas of town, including Shake Rag, prolonging the problem of residential discrimination past its legal lifespan. As giant gravestones, Diddle Basketball Arena, Feix Football Field, and Nick Denes Baseball Field pay no tribute to the formerly thriving and loved community.