Throwback Thursday – Russellville’s SEEK Museum

We visit nearby Logan County for this week’s Throwback Thursday. Another tribute to Black History month, sharing more on the SEEK Museum in Russellville. Telling the stories of struggles for emancipation and equality in Kentucky, the SEEK Museum include six historic, restored buildings that tell of Revolutionary War Major Richard Bibb and the people he enslaved in modern-day Russellville. The Major eventually emancipated nearly 100 slaves, and these are the stories of their struggles for equality and justice over the past 150 years.

There’s so much history at the SEEK Museum that we can do more than a single segment here, and we will return to further elaborate soon. As an overall introduction to the place, one of the pieces of the museum is the old 1817 Bibb House Plantation and is part of the restoration, including his townhouse and the adjacent kitchen and laundry. Museum curators believe it is the only public museum in America that tells the stories of the slavery and emancipation that occurred within the museum’s site. Major Bibb enslaved three generations of peoples, and did not free them until his death in 1839.

The second major piece of the SEEK Museum is The Bottom, found in a National Register Historic District that was settled by mostly freed peoples after the Civil War, and eventually became a thriving neighborhood community. Four historic buildings within The Bottom district contain stories of Civil War veterans and their accomplishments in a world of racial inequality and injustice. Parts of the exhibits also highlight the mob violence and lynchings that came with struggles of racial discrimination in the Jim Crow era.

The SEEK Museum is open for public and group tours Wednesday to Saturday. There are many more opportunities to highlight major Civil Rights accomplishments in Russellville. We will visit more on the SEEK Museum soon.