Tom Eblen's latest column provided by the Lexington Herald-Leader

Tom Eblen

Tom Eblen: Group hopes to buy, renovate historic former First African Baptist Church

Rev. L.H. McIntyre, retired pastor of First African Baptist Church, tells attendees at a reception Feb. 25 launching the First African Foundation about the history of the church, which traces its roots back to about 1790. The foundation hopes to buy the church's former building at the corner of Short and Deweese streets and turn it into a museum and cultural center. The building, finished in 1856, was mostly financed and built by slaves. At the time, it was Kentucky's largest church congregation, black or white.

The old sanctuary of First African Baptist Church at Short and Deweese streets would become a 400-seat concert hall under a tentative plan of The First African Foundation.

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Archive by category ''Tom Eblen

TOM EBLEN

Tom Eblen: Poet's passion turns out to be good business

Katerina Stoykova-Klemer already was a classic American success story. Born in Bulgaria, she immigrated to the United States at age 24 with her young son and married her American pen pal, Daniel Klemer. She earned a bachelor's degree in computer science, then a master's in business administration...

3 days ago
TOM EBLEN

Tom Eblen: Post-Katrina Tulane provides lessons for UK

Hurricane Katrina almost wiped out Tulane University. Then, the disaster gave the 178-year-old New Orleans institution an exciting new vision.

4 days ago
TOM EBLEN

Tom Eblen: Phillip March Jones' new art book catalogs memorials to crash victims

For the past six years, Phillip March Jones has been stopping at roadside memorials, taking a Polaroid photograph and recording each location's GPS coordinates. He has done this from New York to California, and, because he lives in Lexington, all over Kentucky. Jones has now collected 139 of these...

6 days ago
NEIGHBORS

Tom Eblen: Fascinating tales uncovered in the history of black Kentuckians

Historians had written about slavery in antebellum Kentucky, but a deeper exploration of the black experience didn't really begin until 1971. Since then, more academics have mined this rich vein.

9 days ago
BUSINESS

Tom Eblen: Silicon Valley executive works from Lexington office

After five years in California working for Cypress Semiconductor, Alan Hawse decided in 1996 that he wanted to move back home to Lexington.

10 days ago
TOM EBLEN

Tom Eblen: Latest version of CentrePointe shows progress in Lexington's design process

I will admit to suffering a bit of CentrePointe fatigue when I went to see a preview of the fifth iteration of Dudley Webb's still-unfunded downtown hotel, retail, office and condo development. But it was worth the trip.

12 days ago
NEIGHBORS

Tom Eblen: Lexington physician was an activist far ahead of her time

In Mary E. Britton's time, a black girl in Lexington wasn't supposed to grow up to be a teacher. Much less a journalist, a civil rights activist, a social reformer or a medical doctor. Britton became all of those.

16 days ago
BUSINESS

Tom Eblen: Fark founder hopes to help other entrepreneurs succeed

When Drew Curtis started Fark.com, he was a 26-year-old smart aleck who thought there was money to be made by collecting the world's funniest and weirdest news stories on one Web site and letting readers comment on them.

17 days ago
BOOKS

Tom Eblen: Is Lexington the Literary Capital of Mid-America?

Many states have rich literary traditions. But few can top what writers who were born in or moved to Central and Eastern Kentucky have produced — and are producing.

19 days ago
TOM EBLEN

Video: Nikky Finney's National Book Award acceptance speech

19 days ago