Kentucky Open Government Coalition co-founder and co-director Jennifer P. Brown’s pursuit of the truth extends to her service as Kentucky Historical Society President and Hoptown Chronicle editor. 

Brown was recently quoted in a Courier Journal article examining the Historical Society’s upcoming review of the Commonwealth’s 2500 historical markers it oversees and the “importance of having a representative and accurate depiction of who has contributed to our state's history.”

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2022/02/10/kentucky-hi…

Reporter Matthew Glowicki reports:

“Jennifer P. Brown, president of the historical society’s governing board, said in an October 2020 board meeting that she was concerned about ‘how the ability to pay is affecting the stories being told and an unintended bias against underrepresented voices.’

“‘People who have financial resources or know how to get the support of people who have the financial resources for a few thousand dollars for a marker are not always going to be from the underrepresented communities,’ she told the Courier Journal.

“Brown, a Hopkinsville journalist, pointed to Christian County as an example. Despite a historically large Black population for Kentucky – currently about one in four residents – there were no historic markers dedicated to African Americans. 

“That’s until 2017, when she successfully applied for a marker dedicated to Black journalist Ted Poston in Hopkinsville.

“‘If you have 20 markers in a county with a large African American population and not one of them is about an African American person or institution, then something is off about the story we’re telling,’ she said.

“‘It’s worth the effort to attempt to have a fuller view of who has contributed to our state’s history,’ Brown said of the upcoming review process. ‘We’re always trying to get closer to the truth.’”

In all things.