Russell is a

neighborhood A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area, ...

immediately west of downtown

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

, USA. It was named for renowned African American educator and

Bloomfield, Kentucky Bloomfield is a home rule–class city in Nelson County, Kentucky, in the United States. The population was 838 during the 2010 U.S. census. Former names of the city included Middlesburg and Gandertown. History The community on the east fork o ...

native Harvey Clarence Russell Sr. Its boundaries are West Market Street, 9th Street, West Broadway and

I-264 Interstate 264 is the designation for two Interstate Highways in the United States, both of which are related to Interstate 64: *Interstate 264 (Kentucky), a bypass of Louisville, Kentucky *Interstate 264 (Virginia) Interstate 264 (I-264) i ...

History

Development began in the 1870s as street car lines were extended to the area. The area was considered one of Louisville's most fashionable in its early years with many affluent white families building elegant mansion homes on Walnut, Chestnut Street, and Jefferson Streets, while working class blacks and whites lived in

shotgun houses A shotgun house is a narrow rectangular domestic residence, usually no more than about wide, with rooms arranged one behind the other and doors at each end of the house. It was the most popular style of house in the Southern United States from t ...

on adjacent streets. By the 1890s many white families began leaving the area for what would become Old Louisville and the east end, and both middle and working class blacks quickly moved into the area. By the 1940s Russell had become "Louisville's Harlem" as African American theaters, restaurants, and night clubs lined area streets. However, in the years following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

many of the middle class blacks left for newly integrated neighborhoods on the south and east ends.

Urban renewal Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...

efforts in the 1960s had the area's business districts razed and many public housing units built. America's first

public library A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil service, civil servants. There are ...

open to African-Americans is in Russell. The Western Branch of the Louisville Free Public Library, on 10th Street off Chestnut, opened in 1908.

Demographics

As of 2000, the population of Russell was 9,060 .

References

External links

Street map of Russell Images of Russell (Louisville, Ky.) in the University of Louisville Libraries Digital Collections
— Article by Betty Winston Baye of ''

The Courier-Journal ''The Courier-Journal'', also known as the ''Louisville Courier Journal'' (and informally ''The C-J'' or ''The Courier''), is the highest circulation newspaper in Kentucky. It is owned by Gannett and billed as "Part of the ''USA Today'' Ne ...

'' {{coord, 38.2545, -85.7873, type:landmark_source:enwiki-googlemaplink, display=title Neighborhoods in Louisville, Kentucky African-American history in Louisville, Kentucky Populated places established in the 1870s 1870s establishments in Kentucky