From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (main entry)

Founded in 1912, the Louisville YWCA hosted the first interracial YWCA conference in the South, October 14-16, 1915. Four years later, it was noted in Child Welfare in Kentucky that the Louisville Association of the YWCA was the only YWCA in the United States that provided a summer camp for colored girls.

The Phillis Wheatley Branch of the YWCA for African Americans was established in the early 1920s and closed in the 1970s. The first Spouse Abuse Shelter in Kentucky was opened in the Louisville YWCA in 1977, and in 1981 six shelters in the state formed a statewide coalition, the Kentucky Domestic Violence Association.

In 1998, the Louisville YWCA was no longer affiliated with the national YWCA and became The Center For Women and Families.

For more see U.S. Women's Interest Groups: Institutional Profiles, by S. Slavin; Our History at the YWCA.org website; the YWCA entry in The Encyclopedia of Louisville, edited by J. E. Kleber; and the Young Women's Christian Association Records at the University of Louisville Libraries.