The Black Spot in Corbin

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In 1919, an article in The News Journal described a mob that forced blacks out of Corbin. Don Estep was publisher of the paper at the time and says he's always heard a more benign version of what happened. "Our name has gone out over the nation with a black spot that can never be removed," it said.

In 1919, a white mob forced the entire black population of Corbin, Kentucky, to leave, at gunpoint. It was one of many racial expulsions in the United States. What happened, and how such racial cleansings became “America’s family secret.”

The history of Corbin as presented by the Corbin city government, with no mention of the 1919 racial expulsion.

Elliot Jaspin’s book, Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansings in America