I am a black Southern woman born in 1956. I began to question that identity for the first time in my life when I moved to the foothills of eastern Kentucky. As a native Kentuckian, I thought that I knew the state. But the first time I heard traditional mountain music, I was awestruck—I had never heard anything like it before. A student, Ashley Long, was singing “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive” with the Berea College Bluegrass Ensemble. Darrell Scott’s lyrics and Long’s haunting voice brought tears to my eyes. The song tells the story of a man’s great-granddaughter, who sings about the family lineage in the “deep, dark hills of eastern Kentucky,” where the “sun comes up about 10 in the morning and the sun goes down about 3 in the day,” and “you spend your life just thinking how to get away.” The pain and the despair were palpable in the lyrics and in the style of singing.
When I came to Berea College four years ago, I accepted employment as a college professor; but I quickly realized that I had embarked on something more than just a job or career path. I was drawn to Berea because of its 150-year history and its commitment to African-American students. But I did not want to live in what I regarded as the mountains (in reality, the foothills), so I commuted from Lexington the first year, not telling my family that I had taken a job in the region. I knew they would worry about my living there because of all the negative stereotypes of racist white mountain people.
I didn’t know, but would soon learn, that Appalachian people represent a distinct cultural group. I didn’t understand that their music, traditions, and values were rooted in a way of life I knew very little about; my family and I had accepted as truth all the stereotypes. Over time, I came to know that the rich culture of Appalachia extends beyond Kentucky, including 13 states from Mississippi to New York, with West Virginia the only state entirely in the region.
After a year of commuting, I decided to move. I had found the people in town friendly, and there was a vital black community.
My experience at Berea was different from any other job I had had as a college professor. My first surprise was that, in my first class, there were more African-American students than I had taught in 13 years of my being a professor in Kentucky. The college’s minority enrollment has ranged between 17 percent and 23 percent over the last 10 years, in a state whose African-American population is only about 8 percent.
While it was wonderful working at a predominantly white institution with a significant number of African-American students, even more surprising were the white students. Most of them—60 percent of the 1,500 students on campus—identify themselves as Appalachian. As the semester progressed and I got to know them a little, I found them different from other white people I had encountered. I had worked with working-class whites before, but these students’ differences existed apart from socioeconomic status. Aside from the cultural differences, they were devoid of “white entitlement”; there was a humility and respect that I had never experienced from white students before. They were outspoken about some things and shy about others; they were smart, but not savvy—I found contradiction after contradiction.
Talking with them about their homes in rural Appalachia was similar to talking to international students about their lives in developing countries. I simply did not understand their culture—I hadn’t realized that although these people were white, they were not part of mainstream white culture. That first semester was challenging because I was working with a group that I knew very little about. But I wanted to know more.
In my second semester, I took the college’s weeklong Appalachian Seminar and Tour. I thought it would answer all my questions about the region, but within minutes, I realized that nothing was straightforward. My first question was: “Is it pronounced “Ap-uh-lay-chuh” or “Ap-uh-lach-uh?” (I had been taught the former in grammar school.) Chad Berry, director of Berea’s Appalachian Center, explained that those outside the region said the former, while those inside the region said the latter. I decided to use the regional pronunciation. This was a place where I wanted to belong. I had already begun to feel connected, and I wanted to explore those feelings in more depth.
When I compared what I learned on the tour to what I thought I already knew, I realized that what I had learned as a child had been served up with a large helping of disdain for these people. I was taught what most outsiders assume: that mountain people were poor, ignorant, and backward. During my childhood, whenever Kentucky made the news or was depicted in a film, it was the world of eastern Kentucky—Appalachia—that was portrayed. Therefore, western Kentucky had an image problem, I was told by my elders, since eastern Kentucky was made to represent the entire state.
The negative images and stereotypes I grew up persisted into my adulthood. When Michael Kors, one of the judges on Project Runway, a reality show for aspiring designers, told Raymundo Baltazar in Season 2 that his design for a Barbie outfit looked like it was for a “barefoot Appalachian Barbie,” I laughed as anyone would at a snarky put-down that seemed to perfectly sum up the hideous design. But that was before I moved to Berea. Now I realize that I was like a person who would never make a racist joke herself, but who would laugh when someone else did. We live in a society where you can lose your job for making a racist joke but where there are usually no consequences for making regional slurs.
After moving to Berea, I began to question my assumptions about Appalachia, my biases toward the people, and my complicity in the stereotypes I held. I had never challenged or even recognized my prejudice. I did not know that there was such beauty in the people, the land, and the culture; I felt guilty about my ignorance. These are not poor, simple people who live in the past; Appalachian culture is dynamic, vital, and very much looking to the future to survive.
I began to read as much as possible, I attended cultural events in the region, and I talked to everyone and anyone who would share with me their experiences of having grown up here. I began to see many connections between rural African-American culture and Appalachian culture. There are similarities in food, religion, family structure, and migration patterns. I gained a better understanding of my Appalachian students, and I began to incorporate aspects of Appalachian culture into my courses. I want to teach my students to take pride in their Appalachian heritage and to understand the region’s history, struggles, and triumphs.
About a year ago, Silas House, the National Endowment for the Humanities chair in Appalachian studies here at Berea, spoke on the campus about his childhood and about how being Appalachian was an important aspect of who he was. He said that all of us at Berea were Appalachian—not just those who were born in the region, but also those who had moved here: We were Appalachian by proxy, he told us. I was moved to be included. I had wanted to be but wouldn’t have dared ask. I had figured I would always be an outsider, a flatlander.
My home now is in eastern Kentucky, and there are many aspects of Appalachian culture that I value and share. I came to Berea to work with African-American students, but I stay because of my connection to Appalachia.