But over a structured brainstorming session in 2022, amid a weekend retreat with the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange, something clicked. Mr. Clay, 47, had a side project chronicling Kentucky’s Black Civil War veterans. Ms. Bishop, 34, during quiet hours alone studying the ecology of the Clay Hill Memorial Forest in Taylor County, Ky., had pondered the old stones that almost certainly marked the burial grounds of the once-enslaved, a forgotten memorial to a hidden past. An effort was born — the Enslaved People of Clay Hill, or EPOCH, Legacy Project — to officially recognize the burial ground. And a connection was made across the gulfs of race, age and geography.

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Persons: Bernard Clay, Shaelyn Bishop, Clay, Bishop, — Organizations: Kentucky, Urban, Civil Locations: Louisville, Ky, Green County, Clay Hill, Taylor County