Segregated Parks

Segregated Parks and Recreation Programs 

until Mid-20th Century in Lexington, Kentucky

The Lexington Parks Equity Accelerator (LPEA) is a project of Lexington’s Division of Parks & Recreation, Division of Planning, CivicLex, and Seedleaf, designed to reshape how decisions are made around greenspace, park development, and public land-use planning. One aspect of the project was to understand and acknowledge the ways in which past local policies have led to inequitable community outcomes related to parks and recreation. As part of that effort, the LPEA team asked Rona Roberts and Barbara Sutherland, of the Segregated Lexington project, to study and report on segregation in the early years of Lexington's park program. The material in this report is an expanded version of a slideshow that was presented to the public in three LPEA workshops over the summer of 2023. 

Read the full text of our final report here.