Black in Appalachia

Reshared episode from Host and Historian Brigette Jones discussing Belonging in Tennessee with Black in Appalachia director William Isom. This interview was recorded as part of Humanities Tennessee's United We Stand Project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Power, Light & Outmigration

This episode is a special live recorded production hosted at the National Archives Museum in Washington DC with Ron Carson and Dr. Karida Brown. Participants discussed Black life in Appalachian coal camps, mass outmigration & the return one generation later. Event was held in conjunction with the exhibition, 'Power & Light: Russell Lee’s Coal Survey'.

Researching Black Businesses

Co-hosted by Precious Brown, in this episode we're learning about her research on Black businesses in her homeplace, McMinn County, Tennessee. Sourced from historical records, interviews, and community connections, we'll get some highlights from that research and the importance of Black-owned businesses in preserving cultural heritage in today's Southeast Tennessee.

We are talking about food with Femeika Elliot, a food policy advocate. She discusses food insecurity, food apartheid, policy and zoning decisions that limit access to nutritious food as well as the social determinants of health, employment, income, and transportation & her community-led innovation and education in addressing these issues.

We explore the life and work of Bessie Woodson Yancey, a prolific Black Appalachian poet and writer and sister of Carter G. Woodson. Dr. Enkeshi El-Amin teams up with  Courtney Shimek & Jennifer Sano-Franchini from West Virginia University's National Writers Project to discuss Woodson-Yancey's 1939 poetry collection "Echoes from the Hills" and her themes of nature, childhood, imperialism and Black identity.

In this episode we delve into the short, but complex relationship between Marcus Garvey and Virginia eugenicists during the 1920s. These strange bedfellows' brief alliance formed around the infamous Racial Integrity Act of 1924 & Garvey's imprisonment, exposing the gendered and classist aspects of racial purity movements.

This episode we explore the history and significance of racially charged place names in Appalachia. From Ann Miller Woodford in Far Western North Carolina, SW Virginia's Great Stone Face to poet Cecil Giscombe's reflection on the absurdity of "Negro Mountain" in Appalachian Pennsylvania, this discussion underscores the importance of addressing these place names and the work toward respectful historical narratives.

On this episode of the Black in Appalachia podcast, West Virginia University Sociology Major, Suraya Boggs, shares her experience of growing up in Appalachia as a second generation immigrant with a West Indian parent. She is particularly concerned with the codependent relationships between immigrant parents and American-born children. Boggs found many similarities among herself and other second generation peers and also compared their codependent familiar relationships to their more independent non-immigrant peers.

On this episode of Black in Appalachia we talk with Frank X Walker, Black Appalachian award winning author, coiner of the term “Affrilachian” and 1st Black Poet Laureate of Kentucky. Frank shared with us about his background and growing up in Danville, Kentucky, the origins of his career as a poet, the founding of the Affrilachian poets and some of his work and writing processes. 

Enkeshi and William sit down and talk with Cornel West about his run for President of the United States.