Urban Scenes
In Kentucky’s segregated urban communities, African Americans built successful business districts that provided goods and services to the local black population and nearby rural residents. Old Walnut Street in Louisville and Deweese Street in Lexington offered barber and beauty shops, funeral homes, restaurants, bars, grocery stores, doctors’ and lawyers’ offices, and theaters.
City architecture, street signs, and businesses in Morrison’s city images help pinpoint their urban locations. On the Levee shows boys in Louisville, on the bank of the Ohio River under the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge, which opened in 1929. In the distance is the Big Four Bridge, a railroad truss bridge completed in 1895 and updated in 1929.
