Black in Appalachia

Huge news for the BIA family! 🥳 Our amazing social media manager Malcolm Bamba just started his first week at Yale's School of Drama!

He’ll be up in New Haven for the next couple years learning to tell stories for live theater using projection designs. He tells us he’s super excited to bring his double bass skills and love for Appalachia to the folks in CT.

Wish him well on this new chapter!!! 🐌

Shout out to another one of our interns, Molly Nagin! 🌟

Molly is a grad student with Communication and Development Studies at Ohio University!

This summer, she interned with BIA at the John Gee Black Historical Center in Gallipolis, Ohio. Here, she helped build systems to preserve visitor and exhibit records, strengthen volunteer coordination, and better our communication tools to connect the Center to its community!

She'll return this fall to facilitate story circles for her capstone research, "Where the Map Turns Red," exploring how Ohioans practice social change in a rural community.

Thank you Molly!! ✏️

Check out the new materials on the Community History Database! These are the Washington County, TN Black School Registers, which include the records of the County's Black schools: Jonesboro Colored, Booker T. Washington, McAllister (Limestone/Washington College area), and the very old Warner Institute records from the 1890s!

*Photo: McAllister School, courtesy of Washington County Schools.

Read more below:
https://blackinappalachia.omeka.net/collections/show/111

Not all is lost! We recently were lucky enough to see new preservation efforts coming out of Keystone & Bluefield, West Virginia! We Are The Teachers - WATT is making steady progress on converting Whittico Presbyterian Church into a community center for youth programming. The Hotel Thelma Project 's restoration is also well underway, along with the Traveler's Inn "North Side and East Side" Black History mural by Virginian artist Ellen Elmes!

Let’s celebrate their hard work! 🪚

HAPPY 8TH of AUGUST! We'll be set up at Fulton-Hill Park in Morristown today selling books. What's the 8th of August? It's our region's Emancipation Day, credited to this man: Samuel Johnson, formerly enslaved by Andrew Johnson who helped spread his own manumission date as a regional celebration.
- Find out more here: https://www.blackinappalachia.org/8th-of-august
- Also! Keep an eye out for our forthcoming book 'Black Space: Photography of Appalachian Reunion, Celebration & Homecoming' via West Virginia University Press

Meet our newest intern, Tanja Crouch 🐌

Tanja is a second-year graduate student in the master’s degree program in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee Knoxville.

She has worked with Black in Appalachia as a practicum student, contributing transcription and genealogical research for the school records and related family history of Claiborne County, TN! She is counting her work with us as volunteer service.

However, come early September, Tanja will begin an internship in collaboration with Byte4Byte and Black in Appalachia to develop digital preservation for our many Colored School Registers.

Welcome Tanja to the BIA family!!! 🖤

"The effort also reflects a broader movement across West Virginia and Appalachia, as communities work to preserve historically Black churches before they disappear through neglect or redevelopment. Across the region, such buildings often represent some of the few surviving physical reminders of African American communities whose stories have received comparatively little public attention."

Forgotten Black church in Berkeley Springs may find new life after decades of neglect - West Virginia Explorer As Berkeley Springs prepares for the Town of Bath's 250th anniversary, leaders are working to preserve an 1877 African American landmark.

May we introduce the Golden Tones, courtesy of Mrs. Yvette Goodson! 🎶 In the 1960's the Golden Tones band performed in churches all over the 5 Rivers region of East Tennessee.

The 1950s and '60s were an incredible time for male vocal groups across the state. From Baptist churches to Nashville's biggest radio stations to the Grand Ole Opry, these groups could be heard almost everywhere.

We are proud that the Golden Tones remain an important "note" in our local history.

Front, L to R: Joseph Senter, Lawrence Caldwell, John Davis. Back, L to R: Nip Brooks, William G. Blevins, Theodore Weston Sr., Robert Williams.