Bernard Clay, a Black, middle-aged data analyst and poet from Louisville, Ky., was leery when he was thrown together with Shaelyn Bishop, a shy, white, young biologist who grew up on a family farm in rural Green County, Ky., 15 minutes from the closest town.

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,…