Black Appalachia: Race, Place, and Identity

Black Appalachia: Race, Place, and Identity is the long-awaited successor to Blacks in Appalachia (1985), the first modern anthology to examine the socioeconomic, cultural, and political experiences of Black Appalachians. Edited by Cicero M. Fain III, Sheena Harris Hayes, Wilburn Hayden Jr., and William H. Turner, Black Appalachia features more than twenty-five emerging and established scholars and creatives who challenge how we think about the region by finding new answers to persistent questions.

Covering topics such as migration, discrimination, the arts, and the links between memory and place, this book demonstrates that Appalachia's Black residents maintain a significant role in shaping the region. It documents a renaissance of ideas, music, poetry, photography, and food and uses innovative scholarship, perspectives, and fields of inquiry to acknowledge the challenges and complexities of the Black experience in Appalachia, both historically and within a contemporary framework that addresses new realities.

Black Appalachia expands on the still largely untold story of Black America, reframing legacy and history, highlighting marginalized communities, and celebrating their contributions.

Cicero M. Fain III is the author of Black Huntington: An Appalachian Story, which was a Weatherford Award finalist and winner of the West Virginia Library Association's Literary Merit Award. Sheena Harris Hayes is the author of Margaret Murray Washington: The Life and Times of a Career Clubwoman. Her article "A Woman's Work: The Story of Cornelia Bowen and Mt. Meigs, Alabama" won the Griot Golden Pen Award. Wilburn Hayden Jr. is the author of Appalachian Black People: Identity, Location and Racial Barriers and served as the first African American president of the Appalachian Studies Association. William H. Turner is coeditor of Blacks in Appalachia and author of The Harlan Renaissance: Stories of Black Life in Appalachian Coal Towns, which won a Weatherford Award and Kentucky Historical Society Governor's Award.