Jim Crow Stole the Derby - May 17, 1875

On May 17, 1875, a 19-year-old Black jockey named Oliver Lewis won the very first Kentucky Derby, one of thirteen Black riders in a field of fifteen. For the next two decades, Black jockeys dominated the sport their parents had built under slavery. Then came the violence, the licensing boards, and the business calculations, and by 1911, they were gone. This is the story of what the Kentucky Derby erased and why it still matters today.