THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
Kentucky to the World and the Muhammad Ali Center are both organizations that share missions of uplifting the lives of our shared humanities—whether it be our fellow Kentuckians, or those around the nation and world. For Kentucky to the World, that means shining a spotlight on the reputation and work of amazing Kentuckians. For the Ali Center, that means motivating others to achieve greatness by using our most famous and beloved native Kentuckian Muhammad Ali as inspiration. Both work as incubators of unique stories and amazing ideas to inspire students and promote lifelong learning.
As we close out Black History Month 2021, Kentucky to the World and the Muhammad Ali Center have collaborated to bring you the stories of five amazing Black Kentuckians who have forever shaped the reputation of our state with their work and talents. These people have had a positive “butterfly effect” that has created ripples to the story of Black history in Kentucky.
TRACY DRAIN
Tracy Drain is a Flight Systems Engineer currently working on NASA’s Psyche Mission to explore a unique asteroid of the same name that is orbiting the sun in between Mars and Jupiter. This asteroid is particularly interesting for scientists because its unique metallic composition could potentially be an exposed core of a former planet. The launch is set for August 2022.
Prior to her role on the Psyche Mission team, Tracy was performing the same role for NASA’s Juno Mission, which launched in 2011 and travelled towards Jupiter for 5 years before reaching its destination on July 4, 2016.
Tracy was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, where she graduated from Waggener High School in 1993. As a child, her mother, her teachers, and those around her in Louisville encouraged her to “pay attention to the world around [her].” This attention to both natural phenomena and technological marvels would ultimately pave the way for Drain to pursue excellence in the sciences. She attended the University of Kentucky to get a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. While at the university, she interned at the NASA Langley Research Center Virginia. After graduating in 1998, she went to the Georgia Institute of Technology. She received her Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering in May of 2000 and quickly began working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA where she is still based today.
Tracy was our guest speaker at Kentucky to the World’s inaugural Modern Thinkers Social Series in 2017. The event, held at Copper & Kings Distillery, also featured a space themed art show, live music, and panel discussion. Read more about Tracy on Kentucky to the World’s blog.
BRADFORD YOUNG
Cinematographer Bradford Young was born in Louisville, Kentucky on July 6, 1977. His IMDb page reads like a dizzying list of some of the biggest movies to hit theaters in recent years including Selma, SOLO: A Star Wars Story, Arrival, and the 2019 Netflix mini-series When They See Us.
Even though Young moved to Chicago when he was 15, he claims Kentucky as a paramount influence in his career. In a 2017 interview with The Courier-Journal on the precipice of attending the 89th Academy Awards as a first-time nominee for his work on Arrival, Young said, “In every frame of film, I can point to Louisville, Kentucky." More specifically, Young recognizes something unique about the light in Kentucky saying, "I think about my grandmother's house on Greenwood Avenue and scenes during her wonderful parties. Or I envision the light in my Aunt Marie's kitchen. When I am stuck on a technical issue making a film, I access those memories and I know I am doing the right thing."
Bradford Young on the set of Selma. Unit photography by Atsushi Nishijima, courtesy of Paramount Pictures (2013)
That awareness and respect of natural light has become something of a trademark for Young. He used memories of his childhood bedroom to inform tender scenes in Arrival because he still felt “every inch of that memory” and how the ambient light combined with his mother’s hand rubbing his back imparted the same feeling he wanted to bring to the scene before him.
At the end of the day, Young realizes that he has blazed a trail like many black filmmakers before him and he hopes that his trail leads more people from his hometown to join him in telling stories to the world through cinema.
"I came to realize that Louisville is as spectacular, beautiful and virtuous as New York or L.A. and the voice that I use as a filmmaker and artist from Kentucky is just as valid as anyone from some other place.
Don't throw your small town under the bus. Use it as a backdrop for your story, as a safe space to go and collaborate with other artists who also want to help tell your story...I am hoping this next generation, especially kids from Louisville, use film to tell our story. The untold story of our beautiful city."
FINIS ‘KY’ WHITE
Finis “KY” White, a multi-platinum audio engineer and Kentucky native, isn’t just a hit maker – he’s a career builder.
“Everything that you’ve heard, K has touched,” said the critically-acclaimed and massively successful rapper 2 Chainz at a 2019 open-house workshop in Atlanta where White invited press and aspiring engineers to take a glimpse inside his creative process and his workshop.
White’s reach in popular music in the last decade is remarkable, to say the least. He’s been instrumental in creating an absurd number of chart-topping singles and best-selling records for top artists like Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Rick Ross, A$AP Rocky, Waka Flaka Flame, and Drake just to name a few. Beyond the glitz and glam of hip-hop, White’s story is a testament to the idea that if you can make it in showbiz, you can make it anywhere.
White grew up on the outskirts of Lexington, KY and maintains his deep love and appreciation for the community that raised him. He’s particularly vocal about his passion for UK Basketball and after all the work he’s done with Drake, it’s probably no coincidence that the artist from Toronto has become one of the most prominent fans in the stands when UK plays big games.
Finis ‘KY’ White on stage for Kentucky to the World’s July 2019 program in the Bomhard Theater at Kentucky Performing Arts
When Finis was the featured speaker for Kentucky to the World’s program in July 2019, he made sure to bring his community along with him. A local DJ spun some of Finis’s greatest hits in the North Lobby of Kentucky Performing Arts while various student groups, friends, family, and fans mingled around him in a moment that must have felt like a true homecoming for a man who persevered through bouts of homelessness and uncertainty on his journey to the top of the charts.
You can read more about Finis on our blog and can stream his entire conversation with podcaster and former WFPK host Sean Cannon on KET.
DANA CANEDY
Born in Indianapolis but raised in Radcliffe, Kentucky, Dana Canedy has risen to unprecedented heights in journalism and publishing. A graduate of the University of Kentucky’s prestigious School of Journalism, Canedy took her Kentucky roots to the highest echelons of the industries she navigated, blazing trails every step of the way.
Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for her direction of and contribution to The New York Times’ series “How Race Is Lived in America,” Canedy moved on from her position as Senior Editor of the Times to administering the Pulitzer Prizes; the first woman, first African American and youngest person to ever hold the title . She now serves as the first African American Senior Vice President and Publisher of Simon & Schuster.
Both roles were groundbreaking and for those who have followed Canedy’s career, not altogether surprising. At the helm of the Pulitzers, Canedy made headlines by awarding Kendrick Lamar’s 2017 album DAMN with the Pulitzer Prize in music, the first hip-hop album to ever do so. Her current role at the head of an international publishing house may seem like a departure for a journalist, but Dana is an author too. Her 2008 book, Journal for Jordan, leaned on her experience as a journalist but with a deeply personal angle. Writing the book was equal parts a labor of love and a labor of grief after an IED explosion in Iraq killed her fiance and father of her then 7 month old son. There is an upcoming film adaptation of her book directed by Denzel Washington and starring Michael B. Jordan as her late fiance, Charles King.
Dana was the featured speaker in our first ever digital conversation with former Editor in Chief of The Courier-Journal Rick Green, which debuted on February 1, 2021. You can read more about Dana on our blog and you can watch the full program and companion student program on our YouTube channel.
EVERETT MCCORVEY
Everett McCorvey’s incredible life began in Montgomery, AL during the height of the Civil Rights movement. He lived in the same neighborhood as Martin Luther King Jr. In a recent feature by Creative Lexington, he said, “The whole Civil Rights movement of the ‘60s was part of my life.”
McCorvey became an Assistant Professor of Voice at the University of Kentucky in 1991 and was promoted to a full professor of voice and the director and executive producer of the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre only 6 years later. But McCorvey’s career goes far beyond the classroom. As a vocalist himself, he has performed in venues spanning the globe from Queen Elizabeth Hall in London to China, Italy, and Mexico. His voice has filled the hallowed halls of places like The Metropolitan Opera and The Kennedy Center.
But perhaps his greatest accomplishment in the context of Black History Month is the founding of the American Spiritual Ensemble in 1995. In McCorvey’s eyes, even though slavery in the tradional sense had been outlawed, his community was still enslaved by social constructs like poverty, drug dependency, and discrimination. In the same way that spirituals helped lift the spirits of enslaved African Americans before emancipation, he knew that the songs still have a role to fill in the modern world.
Since its inception in 1995, the group has performed over 400 concerts including 18 tours of the United States and 16 tours of Spain. McCorvey was the conductor and interpreter of the music composed by African Americans, both old and new, breathing new life into the tradition of the American Negro Spiritual and perserving it all at the same time.
To learn more about the life of Everett McCorvey, check out KTW’s blog .
As an award-winning multicultural and educational center, the Muhammad Ali Center is committed to teaching those locally — and around the world — about the life, legacy and ongoing relevance of Muhammad Ali. The Center continues to develop culturally important programming and events that highlight Ali’s six core principles. Learn more about their educational programming today.
