Appalachia. “Coal Country.”
Though many families moved elsewhere after the coal jobs dwindled, there are still a considerable amount of black families left in the region. And as Appalachia's white population decreases, the black population is becoming more and more noticeable.
“When someone hears ‘Appalachia,’ the first thing that pops into their head isn’t an African American face, ever,” said 20-year-old Southeast Community Technical College history student Shaylan Clark. “It’s kind of irritating.”
Clark resides in a small community in Lynch, Kentucky, and is frustrated with the overwhelmingly white narrative that surrounds the town. While navigating the racism throughout her school, she continues to remain strong and keep her “head held high and her shoulders back.”
“Everything that you consider Appalachian that gets attributed to white folks, we did it, too,” said Appalachian State University alum Ed Cabbell. Cabbell studied Appalachian studies at the university. “Every bit of it. Appalachia is not a white man’s territory, but it is majority-white.”
According to recent American Community Survey data obtained via the Washington Post, 200 out of 700 Lynch residents are black. That's almost 30 percent. The United States as a whole is about 13 percent black, according to the Census Bureau.
Black Appalachians are twice as likely not to earn a bachelor’s degree in comparison to their white peers, and are more likely to experience poverty.
Prairie View A&M University research scientist and Lynch native William Turner teamed up with Cabbell to write Blacks in Appalachia, which dissects the history and culture of black Appalachians.
“We basically live on the memories of that place because it was such a unique town,” Turner noted. “We learned the values of respecting other people, expecting the best out of yourself … If you just worked real hard, you would make it. And what is that, except the American story?”
Black — and by extension, American — history and folklore is rich within Appalachia. And the American story is full of black Appalachian heroes.
How can we forget the legendary John Henry who overcame the machinery that was meant to replace him?
And you can add to that notable names like Booker T. Washington and Carter G. Woodson whose work was ingrained with Appalachian values.
University of Kentucky professor and writer Frank X. Walker has swooped in to save the identity day with a new term: Affrilachian.
Walker created the term in an early 1990s poem, and has made it his mission to portray an Appalachia that is “fluid and diverse.” Walker is also the founder of Affrilachian Poets, a group made of of black poets from the region.
“It’s important now for the people of West Virginia to speak up and show the diversity of the region,” said Affrilachian Poets member Crystal Good. “It’s such a small population here, that sometimes it can seem as if we’re very diluted in a sense.”
As for the young Clark, her mission is to keep the history and local pride alive, having learned about her own grandfather and great-grandfather’s mining history when she was a sophomore in high school.
“I would love for my kids to know this place, for my grandkids to know this place,” she said. “I feel safe here, and I want them to grow up with that same safety and sense of being — just being able to run up and down the streets, without worrying.”
