African-American life changed drastically as protections of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments legislated rights for formerly enslaved people during Reconstruction. Cities in America saw rapidly growing urban black populations as African-Americans migrated toward urbanity. For southern communities, while African-American enclaves had existed within towns and cities across the South long before the Civil War, it was not until after the conflict that large residential neighborhoods began to form among such groups. This growth of urban black clusters occurred during the first twenty years after the war. One such antebellum confluence could be seen in Lexington, Kentucky, which became a center for black refugees that sought protection in a time where legal status became contradictory. With time, communities began to form within Lexington, including areas on, what was then, the outskirts of town. Places such as Adamstown, Brucetown, Davis Bottom, Goodlowtown, Kinkeadtown, and Pralltown were neighborhoods in which large amounts of African-American families and individuals found themselves surveying the changing landscapes around them during the antebellum period. While some of these neighborhoods still exist today, many have been removed via policy of the local government, or through the expansion of private developments.
