Original source (on modern site) | Article images: [1]
Democracy Dies in Darkness Oliver Lewis and Ansel Williamson were among the Black turfmen who dominated the early days of the Derby, before Jim Crow changed everything.
May 4, 2024 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
Ansel Williamson, the trainer whose horse won the first Kentucky Derby, is depicted on the right in the 1864 painting "Ansel Williamson, Edward Brown, and the Undefeated Asteroid," by Edward Troye. (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Paul Mellon Collection, 85.647. Photo by Katherine Wetzel © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)The track was fast and the weather clear on that spring day in Louisville, nearly 150 years ago. As the inaugural Kentucky Derby was about to start on May 17, 1875, Oliver Lewis and Ansel Williamson stood on the cusp of history, though they didn't know it at the time.
< Back to 68k.news BR front page![[1]](image.php?loc=BR&i=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/GOTROTXGNVFBDD7SE44GLEIBAE.jpg&w=1440){kind=link}