WKU students host event commemorating historic Jonesville

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) -

A few students from Western Kentucky University decided to honor and remember the history town of Jonesville as part of a class project.

“It’s easy to have a plaque on the side of the road saying “Jonesville” that everybody ignores. But actually having the opportunity to talk to the people that lived there and who touched the community, it just really puts it into perspective,” Laurel Philpott said. Philpott is one of the organizers of the event.

Jonesville was a tight-knit African American community in Bowling Green until Western Kentucky University expanded during the Civil Rights Movement. Some call the move racially injust. You can read more about the history here.

“I thought that it was important to come out here to show that we still care about Jonesville and that we still have a lot of work to do,” Lamario Moore, who attended the event, said.

Some people who have family once lived in the town even came to the commemoration.

“We have to remember that Jonesville was a very vivid community. We’ve had members of Jonesville whose parents lived there, or they lived there as children, and they’ve come out today to share their stories,” Philpott said.

Organizers said the event was a success. Several people came and wrote the names of victims of racial violence in chalk on a campus sidewalk.

“I think that it shows transparency and I think that it shows support,” Moore said.

The event wrapped up around 5 p.m. on Tuesday.

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