Browse A-Z Authors: Tu-Tz

Although southern Appalachia is popularly seen as a purely white enclave, blacks have lived in the region from early times. Some hollows and coal camps are in fact almost exclusively black settlements. The selected readings in this new book offer the first comprehensive presentation of the black experience in Appalachia. Organized topically, the selections deal with the early history of blacks in the region, with studies of the black communities, with relations between blacks and whites, with blacks in coal mining, and with political issues. Also included are a section on oral accounts of black experiences and an analysis of black Appalachian demography. The contributors range from Carter Woodson and W. E. B. Du Bois to more recent scholars such as Theda Perdue and David A. Corbin. An introduction by the editors provides an overall context for the selections. Blacks in Appalachia focuses needed attention on a neglected area of Appalachian studies. It will be a valuable resource for students of Appalachia and of black history.

Directory and statistics.

"December 10, 1991"--Cover. "A funded project of the Trinity Church"--Cover. Grant-funded joint project between Berea College, Appalachian Ministries Educational Resources Center (AMERC), Trinity Church, Black Mountain Improvement Association and the Black Mountain Youth Leadership Program.

A personal remembrance from the preeminent chronicler of Black life in Appalachia. The Harlan Renaissance is an intimate remembrance of kinship and community in eastern Kentucky's coal towns written by one of the luminaries of Appalachian studies, William Turner. Turner reconstructs Black life in the company towns in and around Harlan County during coal's final postwar boom years, which built toward an enduring bust as the children of Black miners, like the author, left the region in search of better opportunities. The Harlan Renaissance invites readers into what might be an unfamiliar Appalachia: one studded by large and vibrant Black communities, where families took the pulse of the nation through magazines like Jet and Ebony and through the news that traveled within Black churches, schools, and restaurants. Difficult choices for the future were made as parents considered the unpredictable nature of Appalachia's economic realities alongside the unpredictable nature of a national movement toward civil rights. Unfolding through layers of sociological insight and oral history, The Harlan Renaissance centers the sympathetic perspectives and critical eye of a master narrator of Black life.

Juvenile fiction. Pleasant Hill series, book 1. After losing both parents, 10-year-old Betsy Johnson and her younger brother, Tad, have been sent to live in the Shaker community at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, in late 1834. They hardly know their only relatives, Aunt Emma and Uncle Michael, who had given up all their worldly possessions five years earlier to live communally with 500 other Believers. Betsy has been frightened by the stories her preacher, Rev. Simpson, has told about the Shakers. He says they are possessed by the devil, speak in tongues and twirl themselves into a frenzy as part of their worship. Is this any place she wants to grow up? Betsy feels responsible for maintaining the memory of her parents and caring for her brother. Stripped of nearly everything familiar, she also feels terribly alone, but that loneliness fades with time as Betsy is befriended by an artistic girl named Grace, whose wagging tongue fills her in on the gossip about the Sisters and Brethren at Pleasant Hill, as well as the duties of children in the society. Betsy especially loves time spent in the garden. It reminds her of home - and her ma, who had grown herbs and used them to treat ailing neighbors. Betsy also seals an uneasy relationship with an older girl, Ruth, whom Betsy rescues from certain death after Ruth plunges through the ice during a late winter outing. Once safely in the infirmary, Ruth doesn't respond to treatment, so Betsy wrestles with whether she should divulge Ruth's secret in order to save the girl's life. Betsy begins to realize her own healing gifts, but will she accept Pleasant Hill as her new home and the Shakers as her new family? This work of historical fiction for young readers is the first in a three-part series published within the "Think Young Collection," a division of MotesBooks. (www.MotesBooks.com)

Juvenile fiction. Pleasant Hill series, book 2. Ten year old Tad Johnson doesn't fit into life at Pleasant Hill, believing he has no talent to offer the community. After a tragic accident with a raging bull, the day-dreaming Tad finds strength, courage, and his gift.

Juvenile fiction. Pleasant Hill series, book 3. Third in the Pleasant Hill series of books about children in a 19th-century Shaker community in Kentucky. Grace, at 15, is feeling the pinch of the simple Shaker life in 1839. She secretly weaves a colorful silk scarf to enter in the upcoming county fair contest, dreaming that the prize money will buy her ticket to freedom on the next stagecoach to the bustling big city.