Appalachia is waking up to the political impact of local action. For example, Blacksburg VA and Morgantown WV joined over 350 cities and towns nationwide in recent weeks, pledging to reduce their global warming pollution. Other cities in the region…

Appalachia is waking up to the political impact of local action. For example, Blacksburg VA and Morgantown WV joined over 350 cities and towns nationwide in recent weeks, pledging to reduce their global warming pollution. Other cities in the region…

I first heard about the Buffalo Creek Disaster while at a meeting in central West Virginia. A group of activists had gathered to form an Appalachian chapter of the People’s Party — an anti-war, populist political party that in 1972…

Deregulation of Virginia’s electric utilities has been a failure – almost everyone agrees on that. What to do about it ought to be the subject of a broad and far-reaching public policy debate. Instead, Virginia’s leading utility, which wrote its…

Astute observations are not at all unusual in a Survey of American Literature course, usually arising out of lively discussions of what is to be found among the pages of college textbooks. Sandra L. Ballard, a teacher in the English…

Slow Road Home: A Blue Ridge Book of Days. By Fred First. Goose Creek Press. 216 pages. $15.95 Fred First is a biologist, photographer, and writer who did what many simply dream of. Several years ago he quit his “day…

At a moment when North Carolina’s strong clean air legislation seemed under attack on the federal level, Appalachian Voice volunteer Brenda Huggins showed how leadership and common sense can make an important political point. Huggins was concerned about the possibility…

“It was a nightmare” Betty Tackett I took my children out of the house, and my husband ran across the railroad track to make sure the neighbors weren’t still in bed. He told me to take the children up off…

images/voice_uploads/Mimi.Pickering.treeless.in..gif With a long history of organizing and activism, Appalachian women have played vital roles in the drama of this mountainous region. Activists such as Anne Barton, Aunt Molly Jackson, and Widow Combs, all who hail from the first half…