By Steve FlairtyNKyTribune columnist
The first time I recall hearing much about Kentucky’s infamous Day Law was in 2007 when I interviewed Bettie L. Johnson for my Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes book series. Bettie, an acclaimed African American educator, Civil Rights advocate and nursing home director from Louisville, shared with me that she was not allowed admittance to the University of Louisville (U of L) in the 1940s because of the color of her skin.
Fortunately, Bettie found other colleges to attend, performed well, and gained much success. With great irony, she became a great benefactor of the later integrated U of L, and amazingly, had a campus dormitory named for her.
Before Bettie was born, a sad part of Kentucky’s history took place in 1904 at the passage of the Day Law, which happened the same year it was introduced in the Kentucky legislature by Representative Carl Day. Day had visited Berea College, at the time the only integrated college in Kentucky. While there, he saw and didn’t like the mixing of Whites and Blacks in the classrooms…