There's a new way to learn about the contributions of influential black Kentuckians.

Six county tourism agencies have launched Kentucky Black Trailblazers, an augmented reality experience that brings these historic figures to life.

Kentucky Black Trailblazers is a first of its kind augmented reality experience that tells the story of 19 different black Kentuckians who have not had their story told.

The state of Kentucky received ARPA funding that was American Rescue Plan, funding it, and then the General Assembly appropriated X amount of dollars to go to the state's tourism industry.

The Kentucky Department of Tourism, as part of the stipulation for giving out that money, said You need to do something that's transformational and innovative.

And we took that to heart and came up with the idea of let's talk about black history, let's highlight black history, but do it in a way that's never been done before.

And that's when the augmented reality idea came into place.

It was about two years ago today that we started this project and so it has been two very full, very busy years in the making.

And we recognize that this is just a small part of Kentucky's black history.

But we worked with local historians in each of the six counties where there are experiences, specifically local black historians.

And we said, what stories do you want to highlight?

Whitney Young, Jr. Who was born in Simpsonville and was part of the Big Six, along with Martin Luther King and was really influential in the civil rights movement.

His experience was located at Whiskey Park, right in the heart of Simpsonville.

Elijah Marrs, who was one of the first black schoolteachers in Kentucky, he founded what became Simmons College.

Louisville was a Civil War veteran, and so his experience is located at Veterans Memorial Park, which is right across from our historic courthouse on our main street Sergeant and then 12th U.S. and the one that we really want to make sure that was highlighted was the Harlem Hellfighters.

So they were a infantry group in World War One.

They were actually the most decorated infantry group in World War One, but five of them were from Shelbyville and are buried in Calvary Cemetery.

Last left, right, left.

And I didn't know that.

I grew up here.

I was born and raised, went to school here, and I had no idea.

And so to be able to tell those stories is really a privilege.

Another selling feature of the augmented reality is that it is engaging for a younger generation that may not you know, they see history as old and boring and things like that.

This is a way to make it much more interactive and immersive.

You stand there and you scan the QR code that's at each experience and they appear in front of you almost like a hologram for point quality.

We're thrilled that people have been able to experience the whole the whole thing.

We had someone that did the Harlem Bullfighter experience at Calvary Cemetery, and they didn't realize that some of their family or they were related to one of the Harlem fighters that's highlighted in this experience.

And they didn't realize they had been whole fighter.

They didn't know they were buried in that cemetery.

And so it was just truly moving.

A lot of tears were shed.

Hmm.

This experience is free of charge for the public.

All you need is a phone.

Warren says that plans to expand it into other counties aren't in the works currently, but if more funding comes in for the project, they are certainly open to it.