Banks detailed African-American history in Clark County
Published 9:33 am Friday, February 23, 2018
This is the 13th in a series of 20 articles that appeared in The Winchester Sun in December 1919 and January 1920.
The author, William Webb Banks (1862-1928), was the long-time editor of the Colored Column in the Winchester News and later in The Winchester Sun.
He was a graduate of the State Colored Baptist University in Louisville (later known as Simmons College).
He returned to Winchester where he taught school, wrote for the paper and was active in the Baptist church.
Jan. 7, 1920
Slavery is said to have been very mild in Clark county as compared with other counties. A very small percent of the colored population was ever sold South, and when a colored person was hired out, the contract always read that said person must be treated with humanity.
After the death of Rev. Alfred Thomas, the organizer of the Howard’s Creek Church and a member of other churches out of the county, the Rev. Charles Fishback published his biography in book form. Also Rev. Zacharick, Winchester pioneer pastor of Clark Chapel CME Church, published a book some years ago on Religious Deportment.
John Duncan and Riley Gay were the early horse trainers of the county.
The white cemetery contains a number of unknown and unmarked colored graves, as the colored people buried their dead there for years. Later they purchased a cemetery of their own on the Muddy Creek pike. The following colored families have lots in the white cemetery: Allen, Stevenson, Gardner, Banks, Vivion, Davis and Taylor.
Thomas Faulkner and Mary Ball owned the largest tract of land ever owned by any colored person in the city limits of Winchester.