Inside Appalachia

In this week’s episode of Inside Appalachia we hear a roundup of some of our region’s news, from recovery efforts in Kentucky following devastating tornadoes, to how infrastructure funding from Congress could benefit communities in Appalachia. We’ll also hear from teenagers in Western North Carolina share poetry about how they see themselves and their identities. 

Communities Rally To Support Tornado Victims 

Parts of Kentucky, Tennessee and four other states are in recovery mode following deadly tornadoes last weekend that left a trail of devastation. Among the towns hardest hit was Bowling Green, Kentucky. In this episode we hear a story by WKYU’s Lisa Autry about the impacts the tornado had on this community, and efforts to help those who are suffering. Jennifer Capps, executive director at American Red Cross of South Central Kentucky, said it’s the worst local disaster she’s seen in her career.

Infrastructure Funding For Appalachia

The bipartisan infrastructure bill that became law last month has billions of dollars in it for roads, bridges, airports and transit systems in the Ohio Valley.

The law also addresses some of the region’s other pressing needs.

The $1 trillion infrastructure law has the potential to deliver big improvements to Appalachia. It will help reclaim abandoned mine sites, putting laid-off coal miners back to work.

Children In Appalachia At High Risk Of Serious COVID

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect Appalachia, with case numbers on the rise yet again. That includes children who are being hospitalized with serious cases of the disease. As Corinne Boyer reports, children in Appalachia are at a higher risk of developing a serious case of COVID, because of a high rate of childhood obesity. 

Helping Teens Express Identity Through Poetry Writing Series

Who am I? It’s a question that teenagers wrestle with everywhere, as they discover their identities. In this episode we hear a series of stories, called Storycraft, produced by Blue Ridge Public Radio in Asheville. This summer, BPR teamed up with a nonprofit, Asheville Writers In The Schools and Community. Together, they hosted a series of workshops with teenagers and asked them the question: ‘Who Am I?’ The teenagers wrote poems based on the prompt, and we hear three of these in this episode. 

Breonna Taylor’s Life Honored In App Called ‘Breonna’s Garden’

We also learn about a media project that honors the life of Breonna Taylor, who was shot by Louisville police in March 2020. Artists designed a digital app to function as a space for Taylor’s loved ones and community members to find solace. WFPL reporter Stephanie Wolf takes us into the augmented reality artwork, “Breonna’s Garden.”

Crystal Good Aims To Change Media Landscape Through ‘Black By God’

Sometimes, spending time away from your home makes you fully appreciate how much you love it, despite its downsides. It also helps you to see a place where you can try to make a difference. That’s what Crystal Good did. She’s a writer and entrepreneur who grew up in West Virginia but recently spent about two years in California.

Last month, she returned home with an ambition to change the state’s media landscape. Good says she knows it’s a gamble to launch a business in the midst of a pandemic, not to mention a media project at a time when newsrooms across the country are collapsing. But she feels like it’s important, something she has to do. 

Appalachia connects mountainous parts of the South, the Midwest, the Rust Belt, even the Northeast. The Appalachian Regional Commission defined the boundaries for Appalachia in 1965 with the creation of the Appalachian Regional Commission, a part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. It was legislation that sought to expand social welfare, and some localities were eager for the money, while others resisted the designation. The boundaries and definition of Appalachia can only be changed by an act of Congress. 

Politically, Appalachia encompasses 423 counties across 13 states — and West Virginia’s the only state entirely inside the region. 

That leaves so much room for geographic and cultural variation, as well as many different views on what Appalachia really is. For Inside Appalachia this week, we’re turning our entire episode over to the question, “What is Appalachia?” With stories from Mississippi to Pittsburgh, we ask people across our region whether they consider themselves to be Appalachian. 

Mississippi

Bob Owens is a watermelon farmer outside New Houlka, in the northeastern part of Mississippi. Owens said he was aware that Mississippi is part of Appalachia, but that no one in the state would consider themselves Appalachian. “I consider myself the worst redneck you’ve ever seen,” Owens said. “I live in the area of the Appalachian mountain range—not part of it, but close to it. So I guess you call me a redneck Appalachian.” This is the general consensus among the people in Mississippi we spoke to. 

Geographically, the foothills of the Appalachian mountain range are located in northern Mississippi. The state’s tallest point is Woodall Mountain, 806 feet in elevation. For reference, the highest point in North Carolina, Mount Mitchell, is more than 6,600 feet in elevation, eight times higher than Woodall Mountain.

Shenandoah Valley 

In the 1960s, while some localities were clamoring to get into Appalachia, on the eastern edge of the region some lawmakers fought to keep their counties outside the boundaries, including politicians in Roanoke, Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley. Appalachian Studies associate professor Emily Satterwhite said explaining to her students why some counties in Virginia are included in Appalachia, but others aren’t is confusing. “The students in front of me are wondering why they're not included,” White said. 

Pittsburgh 

Appalachia’s largest city is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When we asked people from that city to tell us if they consider it a part of Appalachia, about half said no. “I definitely do not feel that I am Appalachian culturally,” said Mark Jovanovich, who grew up just outside Pittsburgh’s city limits in the Woodland Hills area.

Writer Brian O’Neill disagrees. He wrote a book called “The Paris of Appalachia: Pittsburgh in the Twenty-First Century.” “My original title for the book was ‘I love Pittsburgh like a brother and my brother drives me nuts.’”

An editor advised him to change the title of his book to a phrase that he said is sometimes used to refer to Pittsburgh derisively. “I couldn't figure out why that should be put down because Paris is nice. And Appalachia is a beautiful part of the world. And if we were called the Paris of the Rockies, we wouldn't run from that. So why would we run from this? Why don't we embrace it? So that became the title of my book.”

He said that geographically, Pittsburgh is clearly in the Appalachian Mountains. “I mean, this is one mountain range that stretches from Georgia to Maine. And the idea that it belongs only to the southern part of the mountain range defies logic to me,” O’Neill said. 

This week’s episode of Inside Appalachia explores stories about families, friends, and how people on opposite ends of the political spectrum connect through music, food and conversations about tough topics. We’ll hear the story of one of the world’s best fiddlers, Clark Kessinger, from St. Albans, West Virginia. We’ll learn how he inspired his nephew, Robin Kessinger, to play the guitar. 

We’ll also talk about how East African immigrant communities in a small town in West Virginia are connecting back to their home traditions through coffee ceremonies. 

Kessinger Brothers

Robin Kessinger is a national award-winning flatpicker, and yet he still spends his days teaching kids and adults their first chords. One of his main musical mentors was a music legend in his own right.

Inside Appalachia folkways reporter Zack Harold has the story.

Coffee Ceremonies 

Moorefield, West Virginia, is home to about 3,300 people — about one in 10 are immigrants. That includes a small community from Eritrea and Ethiopia. Many of them work at the chicken processing plant in town, Pilgrim’s Pride. The hours there are long and don’t leave much time for socializing. Still, members of that East African community continue to practice a tradition they’ve brought from home: the coffee ceremony. Folkways reporter Clara Haizlett brings us this story, with help from former West Virginia state folklorist Emily Hilliard. 

Young Farmers Struggle To Find Land

For generations here in Appalachia, fall has been a time of harvest. On farms, there’s a mad rush to get all the last crops in before that first hard freeze. It’s a tough time of year in an already difficult job. For a lot of folks, farming is a constant uphill battle to get out of debt. And yet, people still want to farm, including a growing number of young people. But one of the biggest barriers to young farmers is accessing affordable land. WESA’s An-Li Herring reports.  

Virtual Dinner Party 

We’re in the midst of the holiday season, nearly two years into the pandemic, and some of us are getting to see our families for the first time in a while. But family get-togethers, even during non-pandemic times, can also be stressful, especially if you have family members who have political views that don't quite line up with yours. Our colleagues at the Us & Them podcast started a tradition last Thanksgiving — a virtual dinner party of people with different political views. They returned this year with another holiday dinner party to talk about issues with the intention of finding some common ground between servings of turkey and pumpkin pie. 

Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Blue Dot Sessions, Jake Schepps, Wes Swing, and Dinosaur Burps. Roxy Todd is our producer. Our executive producer is Andrea Billups. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens. Zander Aloi also helped produce this episode. You can find us on Twitter @InAppalachia. You can also send us an email to [email protected].

The story of Appalachia can’t be summarized in one book, one article or one movie. Our region goes beyond just ill-considered stereotypes.

This week on Inside Appalachia, we’ll learn about people who are digging beneath the surface, telling authentic stories about life in Appalachia. From women who are writing a new TV show about the realities of overcoming addiction and finding recovery, to a community theater company in Harlan County, Kentucky, that produced a play called “Shift Change.” It confronts racism, and neighbors who stand on opposite sides of politics. In this episode we’ll also hear from writers, playwrights, filmmakers and storytellers who confront the complexities of life here in Appalachia. They share why we should be proud of these complexities, and be willing to learn something new about Appalachia — even those of us who live here.

Her Hope Haven

Earlier this year, we aired a story that featured a young woman named Ashley Ellis. Ellis passed away a few weeks ago. In this episode, we’ll listen back to a story about a project she helped write -- a TV show called “Her Hope Haven,” which explores the opioid crisis from the point of view of people who are inside the recovery process. 

Higher Ground

A local theater company in Harlan County, Kentucky called “Higher Ground” decided to make a play about 2020. For the cast, that meant coming to terms with a difficult year — from COVID-19 to police violence. When the ensemble decided to cover the summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, a lot of feelings came up. The Ohio Valley ReSource’s Katie Myers spoke with cast members and creators on how they reckoned with race, religion and community in their play called “Shift Change.”

Twilight In Hazard

Alan Maimon is an award-winning journalist who lived in and reported on Eastern Kentucky in the early 2000’s. He recently published a book, called “Twilight in Hazard: An Appalachian Reckoning,” which looks at how the past and current events might play into the future of the region. Co-host Caitlin Tan talked with Maimon about the book.

Dopesick 

“Dopesick” is a new series streaming on Hulu. It details the rise of prescription opioids, namely Oxycontin, and the wreckage it has caused in Appalachia and across the nation. June Leffler spoke with Beth Macy, who helped create the show and wrote the book it is based on.

Holler

When Nicole Riegel was growing up in Appalachian Ohio, she couldn’t wait to get out. As an adult writer and film director, the place drew her back and she found herself re-connecting with her town and community in unexpected ways. The result is a film called “Holler.” Katie Myers spoke with the filmmaker about leaving, and returning to, your small hometown.

W.Va.’s Growing Elder Population

The Mountain State is home to a lot of older folks. More than 20 percent of the state’s population is over 65 and we are seeing signs of a crisis in health care. While our average age is going up, the number of younger workers is going down. And that’s a challenge for senior care facilities and home care companies.

This week on Inside Appalachia, we’ll hear how women in the mountains spearheaded movements to battle racial injustice, defend healthy communities, and fight for the rights of all Appalachians. We’ll talk with the author of a book called “To Live Here You Have To Fight,” hear from podcaster Anna Sale, and visit a camp that teaches young people to play rock music.

Women aren’t front and center in accounts of the region’s history, but they’ve been influential in everything from the coal industry to labor movements to preserving traditions. Today, women are building on this history -- continuing to be role models for society, while taking our Appalachian roots into the modern day. In this episode, we’ll learn about several of them, and what their stories reveal about modern movements for change across our region.

How Women Led Appalachian Movements for Social Justice

Appalachian history is full of sharp, groundbreaking women who changed the lives of people around them. In the 1960s, a lot of mountain women got involved with the federal War on Poverty to help people access welfare benefits. That led them into partnerships with civil rights activists, disabled miners and others. They teamed up to fight for everything from poor people's rights to community health to unionization.

History professor Jessica Wilkerson tracks that history in her book, “To Live Here, You Have to Fight: How Women Led Appalachian Movements for Social Justice.” Wilkerson spoke with Inside Appalachia co-host Mason Adams about what led those women into activism — and what their stories tell us about the world today.

“They argued for valuing the common good, and at the end of the day, that's what these women that we're talking about were fighting for,” Wilkerson said. Her book also explores how modern-day movements in Appalachia build on these traditions that were led by women. “In many ways, we're fighting many of the same battles around environmental justice, around basic quality of life.” 

Empowering Young People Through Music

Girls Rock Whitesburg in Whitesburg, Kentucky is a music camp for female, gender-fluid, non-binary, and trans youth. Over the course of a week, campers learn an electric instrument, form a band and write songs. At the end, they perform in front of a live audience. While the camp focuses on electric music instruction, participants also learn how music is tied to social justice. Back in 2019, Folkways reporter Nicole Musgrave followed two girls who came to camp and who reinvented a traditional protest song.

Women-Led Puppetry Group In Knoxville

Throughout history, puppets and marionettes have been used as an accessible means to tell rowdy stories, poke fun at authority figures, and provide cheap entertainment. Puppetry blurs the line between play and politics, between protests, pageants and parades - all of which have a storied history in the South. We’ll hear a story from one of our Folkways reporters Katie Myers, on how a group called Cattywampus Puppet Council in Knoxville, Tennessee, is building on that tradition.

Anna Sale

West Virginia native Anna Sale is host of the popular podcast “Death, Sex & Money.” It's a podcast that talks about, as she says, “the things we think about a lot and need to talk about more.” Sale’s new book, “Let’s Talk About Hard Things,” is about having frank conversations about topics that can make us uncomfortable, including relationships and death.

“If you are ill, what are the kinds of last conversations you want to have with the people you love? And not try to act like it’s not happening,” Sale told Inside Appalachia co-host Caitlin Tan.

This week on Inside Appalachia, we'll hear what happens when a family with roots in Mexico and in Appalachia combines its cultural identities through music. And we have a story about a park in southwestern Virginia that was created during the Jim Crow-era as one of the only recreation areas in central Appalachia for Black residents. Green Pastures eventually fell into disrepair, but now it's seeing a makeover as one of Virginia’s newest state parks.

We’ll also hear how investigative reporters in Pittsburgh brought to light safety concerns in low-income housing. Writer Marie Manilla tells us why she identifies as an "urban Appalachian" and why she feels drawn to push against stereotypes of her region and her people.

A Special Place

In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps and other New Deal programs created parks across America. But many of these places were closed off to Black people, especially in the Jim Crow South. In Clifton Forge, Virginia, the local branch of the NAACP pushed for the creation of a recreation area for Black people. So the state of Virginia partnered with the U.S. Forest Service — and in 1937, they opened Green Pastures. It became a destination for generations of Black people across Central Appalachia. 

Now there’s an effort to gather the stories of people who grew up swimming and playing at Green Pastures. 

Mexilachia

The Lua Project calls their music "Mexilachian” - a blend of Appalachian old time and Mexican folk songs. But members of the band say their music also draws on Jewish and Eastern European traditions. 

Their sound is a musical manifestation of what it means to connect with a mixed cultural identity - a journey which isn’t always easy. Folkways reporter Clara Haizlett caught up with a couple members of the band at their home in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

Eviction

Last year, the Centers For Disease Control issued an eviction moratorium to keep the COVID-19 virus from spreading. In parts of central Appalachia, the moratorium was one of the few things keeping some families afloat. But now there’s no longer a federal policy in place to prevent evictions. The Supreme Court ruled against the Biden administration’s eviction moratorium on August 26, which ended protections that were supposed to extend into early October. As Katie Myers reports, the end of these eviction protections is creating new health risks.

Unsafe Living

An increase in evictions isn’t the only issue facing renters. Reporters Kate Giammarise and Rich Lord have been looking into various issues with the rental market in Pittsburgh.

They’ve heard about tenant organizing, and unsafe living conditions in low-income housing. Rich and Kate have been reporting a year-long series of stories for W-E-S-A and Public Source. Our producer Roxy Todd spoke with them about why this reporting matters, and why it’s not just an issue that people in Pittsburgh should care about. 

Urban Appalachia

For a lot of writers, and publishers, Appalachia means stories about the rural experience-- like coal mining or farming. 

But that’s not true for everyone. 

Author Marie Manilla grew up in Huntington, West Virginia, a city along the Ohio River. Manilla spoke with reporter Liz McCormick about how she uses her work to push change in West Virginia and around the world. 

This week’s episode is all about ballad singers and storytellers. If you’ve listened to Inside Appalachia over the past year, there’s a good chance you’ve heard music by Anna & Elizabeth. This week on Inside Appalachia, co-host Mason Adams sits down with Elizabeth LaPrelle, who grew up in Rural Retreat, Virginia. She and her husband Brian Dolphin moved from Brooklyn back to southwestern Virginia just before the pandemic hit. As longtime performers and new parents they took to Facebook Live, posting weekly livestreams of lullabies and stories. We’ll also hear about a song called “Tom Dooley,” which was first released shortly after the Civil War. It resurfaced 60 years ago, when it topped the Billboard charts. It had everything: A love triangle, a grisly murder, a manhunt, and a hanging. Folkways reporter Heather Duncan is a native of Wilkes County, North Carolina, where the song unfolds. Recently she set out to explore why ballads like Tom Dooley, based on real tragedies and real people, have such staying power.

And we’ll hear from a contemporary ballad singer Saro Lynch-Thomason, who uses the tradition of ballad singing in protests and marches.

A few weeks ago, we asked listeners to share your favorite spooky stories from across Appalachia. This week’s special Halloween episode of Inside Appalachia is packed with ghost stories and mysteries from across the region.

Museums

Central West Virginia has a new monster museum that pays tribute to Bigfoot. The Sutton museum is small, and located in the back of a store that sells knick-knacks and handmade items by local artisans. The museum was created to document local sightings of what people described as these big, hairy primate-looking creatures. 

As if one monster museum weren’t enough for a small town, Sutton is home to two. The Flatwoods Monster Museum is just about a block away. And like the Bigfoot museum, it’s dedicated to a cryptid that’s become part of modern pop culture. 

Spooky Season

Fall is a season of spooky sounds, hayrides and pumpkin festivals. It’s a time for bats and owls and black cats. We’ll hear what happens when a self-proclaimed scaredy-cat takes a Halloween-themed wildlife tour. 

In 2019, reporter Brittany Patterson went on the "Spooky Nights Tour" at the West Virginia Wildlife Center, where visitors of all ages could see wild animals in the dark. Note, the Wildlife Center has stopped these special tours, for now, but they are still open during the day, so you can visit the wolves, panthers and otters that live there.

Witches

The story of the “Witch of Wildwood” takes place in a small coal camp town outside of Beckley. In the early 20th century a person named Kazimir Kiskis moved to town. Kazimir didn’t fit in with the locals and Kazimir cooked food that smelled unlike anything the locals had ever experienced. One day the locals accused Kazimir of practicing witchcraft, potentially even casting a spell on local children. The night before Halloween, Kazimir was burned at the stake. 

We’ll hear Beckley historian Scott Worley explain the story behind the supposed “Witch of Wildwood.”

Skeletons

You can’t have Halloween without skeletons. In this episode, we hear a story about a skeleton named Mr. Death and how an elderly woman outwitted him by enlisting him to help with house-cleaning.

Storyteller Lyn Ford told this story several years ago at the Timpanogos Storytelling Institute in Utah. Ford lives in Columbus, Ohio, but she grew up in Appalachian Pennsylvania and spent childhood summers in East Liverpool, Ohio. She says many of the stories she tells are adapted from folktales she heard as a child.

Music in this episode is by Colby White, Nora Keys, Slate Dump, Tosca and The Soaked Lamb. Roxy Todd is our producer. Our executive producer is Andrea Billups. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens. Zander Aloi also helped produce this episode. 

This week on Inside Appalachia, we’ll hear the story of a world-renowned steelpan drum maker from Trinidad who built instruments in a former coal mining town in West Virginia, and inspired others to learn his craft.We'll also talk with a man who treks hundreds of miles to seek out long-lost varieties of heirloom apples.“West Virginia, I call it my wild-goose-chase state because I’ve gone to so many places where people told me about apple trees used to be - they’re not there," said Tom Brown, who calls himself an "apple detective."And we’ll visit a park in Kentucky where mythical giants attract visitors from far and wide.

This week on Inside Appalachia, we’re talking with the creators of the “Black in Appalachia” podcast about their recent mountain road trip through the coalfields.

“What we saw on our trip mirrors very well the things that we have been thinking about, and talking about,” said the show’s co-host Enkeshi El-Amin. “In some ways it’s affirming, but also it’s sad, that these are the struggles that Black folks are having across the board.”

Also in this episode, we learn about how debates over LGBTQ issues are playing out on the Qualla Boundary, in Western North Carolina. The Eastern Band of Cherokee doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage. But some LGBTQ members have spent the last several months trying to change that. We’ll also hear how some renters in Pittsburgh don’t feel safe in their homes, due to rodents, roaches and leaky roofs. And a nurse in Appalachian, Tennessee shares her memories of growing up in the 1930s, and how she found her profession.