Our Story
The (Un)Known Project is led by artists Hannah Drake and Josh Miller as they draw on their life experiences and travel to places including Dakar, Senegal, Natchez, Mississippi and Montgomery, Alabama, and deep connection to Louisville, Kentucky.
During a visit to the National Memorial of Peace and Justice, reading the 169 names of those who were lynched in Kentucky, one word continued to stand out, “Unknown.” Their journeys together and time at the Memorial birthed the idea to create the (Un)Known Project and to start exhuming the names and stories of the enslaved that America had buried and hidden.
(Un)Known Project creates artistic spaces and experiences to support learning, healing, reflection, reconciliation, and action by honoring the names and telling the stories – of both known and unknown – Black men, women and children who were enslaved and hidden figures in the United States.
By using artistic elements to unearth and share the story of enslavement, our goal is to propel a fuller more accurate account of history. Through this project we are hoping that people will walk away with a desire to learn more about the history of enslavement, its connection to present day, and to examine the role their family may have played in that history.
The (Un)Known Project was launched in Louisville, Kentucky in 2020. As people learned about our work, we quickly discovered the need to expand (Un)Known Project’s footprint to connect enslaved people, stories, and locations in and beyond Kentucky. Because enslavement is a part of American history, we are now creating the (Un)Known Project Trail, to honor and dedicate these sites as memorials to the lives and contributions of Black enslaved people.
For our Louisville, Kentucky (Un)Known Project work we collaborated with Frazier History Museum, Roots 101 African American Museum, and the City of Louisville. This included unveiling a public art installation, two commissioned art exhibits, and an immersive experience aboard the Belle of Louisville.
In November 2022, Hannah Drake and Josh Miller were named Soros Equality Fellows by Open Society Foundations to expand (Un)Known Project into a national initiative.
Hannah Drake
Hannah Drake is a blogger, podcast host, activist, public speaker, poet, and author of 11 books. She serves as the chief creative officer at IDEAS xLab and co-lead artist of the (Un)Known Project, which seeks to discover the hidden names and stories of Black people who were enslaved in Kentucky and beyond. She writes commentary on politics, feminism, and race, and her writing has been featured online at Cosmopolitan, the Washington Post, the Bitter Southerner, the Lily, Harper’s Bazaar, and Revolt TV. In 2022, Drake was named a Soros Equality Fellow and recognized by Today’s Woman magazine as the Most Admired Woman in the Arts. Drake was honored as a Kentucky Colonel, the highest title of honor bestowed by the Kentucky governor, recognizing an individual’s outstanding service. Drake holds a bachelor’s in communications from the University of Colorado and was granted an honorary doctorate in humanities by HBCU Simmons College of Kentucky.
Josh Miller
Josh Miller is a queer changemaker, public speaker, photographer, and outdoor explorer. He is the co-lead artist of (Un)Known Project and the co-founder and CEO of IDEAS xLab—an organization that uses the art of storytelling and community collaboration to impact public health. Miller’s work has been featured by the New York Times, the Aspen Institute, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is a Soros Equality Fellow and received the 2022 Nonprofit Visionary Leader Award from Louisville Business First and was selected for Business Equality Magazine’s Forty LGBTQ+ Leaders under 40 and Louisville Business First’s Forty under 40. Miller is a two-time TEDx speaker and has been described as a “force in our community.” He holds an MBA from Indiana University and an undergraduate degree from Bellarmine University. Previously, he served as an advisor to the Derby Diversity & Business Summit and co-chair for the Louisville Health advisory board’s communications committee.