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“The Day Baby Brucie Died”: An Oral History of the Buffalo Creek Flood
by Betty Dotson-Lewis Author’s note: Larry Conn is a Freewill Baptist Preacher, a public school teacher in Logan County, West Virginia, and a member of a gospel singing group. The oral history of Buffalo Creek Flood survivors such as Larry Conn may have been told repeatedly, but with each time it is relived. Forty years…
Read MoreThe Unhealthy Culture of Coal
The latest in a round of studies on health and well-being in the coal-bearing regions of Appalachia was released in mid-February, with the puzzling conclusion that, while coal mining may not directly contribute to health problems in Appalachia, it still plays a significant role in the health problems in Appalachia. Borak’s study claims that the…
Read MoreDelayed Coal Ash Regulations Put Public Health at Risk
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTAINS TARGETED NORTH CAROLINA INFORMATION Contact: Sandra Diaz, Appalachian Voices, (828) 262-1500; [email protected] Hartwell Carson, French Broad Riverkeeper, (828) 817-5358; [email protected] Delayed Coal Ash Regulations Put Public Health at Risk Groups head to court to force issuance of important national safeguards Washington, D.C. – Environmental and public health groups announced their intent…
Read MoreAnother Nordic Revolution
By Kristian Jackson It’s 5 a.m. and outside the truck, headlights reveal driving snow squalls and drifts as high as the pickup’s hood. Our crawl up Roaring Creek Road near the Toe River of North Carolina comes to a sudden halt in a wall of whiteness. We abandon our attempt to dig out the beast…
Read MoreThe Qualla Creators
Conserving Cherokee Traditions By Molly Moore On the Qualla Boundary, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ reservation, local resources have inspired arts traditions for generations. Today the community’s rich arts heritage is flourishing. The town of Cherokee, N.C.,positioned at the southern terminus of the Blue Ridge Parkway and bordering the Great Smoky Mountains National Park,…
Read MoreBees Share the True Cost of Coal
By Brian Sewell Outside of Appalachia, artists who acknowledge their connection to coal have adopted the issue of mountaintop removal and taken to the road. The Beehive Collective’s True Cost of Coal illustration transforms ways of thinking as it travels by inviting all who see it into a web of stories. The panoramic poster depicts…
Read MorePutting the Human Perspective into Mountaintop Removal
By Brian Sewell For every movement, there is a message. This message can take many forms, but often the most moving is the creation of art to inform. Art helps people see problems anew, even those who see them everyday. The campaign to end mountaintop removal is no different. At the annual meeting of Kentuckians…
Read MorePaul Corbit Brown: Truth Before Profit
By Jamie Goodman Paul Corbit Brown’s life has come full circle – thanks to the lens on his camera. He was born into a coal miner’s family in Kilsyth, W.Va. For generations, every male in his family had become coal miners, but a chance encounter when he was 12 years old ultimately resulted in a…
Read MoreFollowing the Patchwork Path
Quilt Trails Drive Rural Economic Revival By Dana Kuhnline Barn quilts, a relatively new art form that draws on rich rural craft traditions of the past, are helping communities answer an important economic question. “How do we get travelers off the four-lane highways and into communities where they might never go otherwise? How do we…
Read MoreBringin’ Anachronism Back
Modern Adventures in Traditional Appalachian Craft By Julie Johnson I was 25, slogging through yet another post-college retail job, when I realized I should run away to the hills and be a craftperson’s apprentice. It was a dream nurtured since childhood; I longed to be slavishly worked for naught but the benefit of a hands-on…
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