Rewriting the Black experience in West Virginia
My generational claim to Appalachia is subversive, and it talks back to cavalier anti-Black stories of poor white “redneck hillbillies.” But this isn’t the whole story.
I’m a sixth-generation West Virginian. My children are seventh-generation, and my family is Appalachian on both sides as far back as I can. My generational claim to Appalachia is subversive, and it talks back to cavalier anti-Black stories of poor white “redneck hillbillies.”
And every time I do, the notion of an all-white Appalachia dies.
The media has claimed the region to be white, erasing the story of Black, Latin, and indigenous people, making it necessary to remember the truth of Appalachia: it’s not all white, and it’s never been a comfortable place for Black people.
Recently Sara Sider of CNN claimed her ignorance in not knowing Black folks lived and, despite the discomfort, thrived in Appalachia after watching a clip of the Black Appalachia United Shades of America with Kamau Bell.
I wear my Appalachian heritage with pride. My Appalachia reminds me that I am from a land currently known as West Virginia, a place named Appalachia: stolen from the Shawnee, Mingo, and Delaware.
My claim to Appalachia is full of pride but also recognizes how the idea of “Appalachia” is rooted in white supremacist ideas. Therefore, I am anxious for the next chapter of Appalachian-American history to not center on whiteness.
Appalachia as a cultural region was born in the early twentieth century when white elites sought to condemn poor white people (trash, hillbillies, etc.). This was a part of their broader experiment to protect the so-called purity of the white race, explain class inequality, and defend capitalism.
My Appalachia reminds me that I am from a land currently known as West Virginia, a place named Appalachia: stolen from the Shawnee, Mingo, and Delaware.
The Appalachian Regional Commission won’t tell you that poor white people threaten “white supremacy” because their very existence questions the “white race’s” dominance and the ideology of racial capitalism — but perhaps my Appalachian ancestors would.
Stories about non-white communities that thrive in the region challenge their narrative and reshape Appalachia as a place with significant non-white contributions.
The word redneck comes from mining protesters who marched on Blair Mountain wearing red bandanas in a display of solidarity. Not all of those “rednecks” were white. The myth that “everyone who came out of the mines was Black” because of coal dust is only comfort for those interested in class solidarity but without grappling with racism.
I want to tell you the story of Eli Kemp, a black coal miner who was killed by the police for fighting for his rights. His story challenges the popular narrative about West Virginia and how the redneck movement started.
Eli Kemp was a Black man and the first “redneck” miner to die in the Battle of Blair Mountain. Mr Kemp was shot and killed on August 31, 1921, by John Gore, a Logan County Deputy. This battle was not only the largest labor uprising in United States history but the largest armed uprising since the American Civil War.
It took place in Mingo County, named after the Mingo people, an Iroquoian-speaking group of Native Americans. White people called them mingos, a corruption of mingwe.
Over 100 people were killed in Mingwe land during the battle, and many more were arrested.
True solidarity “.. has to be multi-racial but that each part of the coalition, every part, has to feel their voice.”
There were 2,000 Black miners that bravely took arms that day, just a month after the Tulsa race riots, marching for unionization and against the brutality inflicted upon miners was the Baldwin Felts detective agency, a hired police force the coal companies used. The agency was known for harassing miners by destroying their property and physically assaulting them.
Black miners were harassed by the Felts and often degraded by white miners and the company. As a result, they lived in the worst part of the coal camps, did the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs, and even urinated in separate cans inside the earth. Miners like Eli Kemp didn’t just organize because they wanted to join white workers but because they were fighting for their own lives and freedom.
I never heard Eli Kemp’s name until 2021, when I found it in a Twitter thread started by Dr. Jessie Wilkerson.
There is a real danger in romanticizing the racial solidarity in the coal mines of 1921 for 2021 white feelings.
Across social media and think pieces celebrating the 100th anniversary is often told like this, “in 1921, Black, white and immigrant mineworkers took up arms to battle the coal companies that controlled and exploited every aspect of their lives. United, they wore red bandannas to identify each other in battle.” They called themselves the “Redneck Army.”
This is historically accurate, but the overemphasis on interracial solidarity as collegial is false. And often, the 2021 re-telling lacks to mention the conditions for Black miners and rarely connects this history to the present by asking, “In the century since the Battle Of Blair Mountain, what has changed in West Virginia for Black life?”
The battle of Blair Mountain then and now is about police brutality, it is the police who shot Eli Kemp. It took 100 years for him to be remembered.
True solidarity “.. has to be multi-racial but that each part of the coalition, every part, has to feel their voice.” echoing the words of one of our former West Virginia organizers, Jennifer Wells.
Let Eli Kemp’s voice be heard and remembered — not as a token redneck to celebrate Black, white and immigrant coalitions — but as one who gave his life — as a symbol of all those who gave more.
