New Release From Appalachian-Andean Artist Jack Herranen

Check out the title track from the new album by our good friend Jack Herranen. You can order the album Runa Blues on his website: www.jackherranen.tennesseefolk.com



From Jack's website: Kumana is Aymara for a bundle of ceremonial elements and offerings. In Quechua to be a Runa is to be a dignified, rooted, communal being always in conversation with, inseparable from, the communities of spirits and the myriads beings of the natural world. In the great rush towards the false lights of some “better future progress” and “First World ideals” the term acquired a negative and venomous connotation in the mouths of the proponents of these goals. “These damn backward Runas! If they would just give up their old ways, become productive individuals, then we’d ALL progress!” Hell, we’re all familiar- and many of us have felt- this painful story. “These hillbillies/ol’ farmers/rednecks/ indians/blacks/wetbacks a- takin’ our jobs!!”

Our band Kumana is the creative tapestry woven by several extraordinary Bolivian and North American music partners. "Runa Blues" is our first record. It is the full manifestation of the Appalachian-Andean cultural conversation that has been underway for more than a decade. We recorded the bulk of this new music in Cochabamba with an exciting medley of talented folks from Cochabamba, El Alto, La Paz, Italy, and Detroit via Los Angeles.

"Runa Blues" is now deepening its Appalachian roots with the impeccable musicianship of some of the core members of The Bearded, one of southern Appalachia's favorite string/Old Time bands. Two of Knoxville’s hardest-working recording engineers (Nick Corrigan & Brian Wojtowicz) have been instrumental in harnessing the spirit of the work, in the exquisite music store/recording studio environment of Morelock Music right on historic Gay St. in downtown Knoxville. Sound engineer/musician/professor T.J. Jones is chief engineer for the mixing and mastering of this intercultural musical tapestry.

Inside Kumana's blues there is no feeling of defeat. It is the creative space where dignified rebellion is safeguarded. This music collection is an homage to campesinos, miners, working class folk, indigenous brothers and sisters, African-American and Latino comrades…the folks often pinned beneath the wheels of progress. Each song is a musical dialogue that runs from the Appalachians to the Andes, a chorus of voices and melodies that arise from the “Venas Abiertas” of Las Americas.

The elements we bring are our different musical styles, the cultural and political struggles of our peoples, our spirituality and our histories. The songs are journeys along diverse pathways that embrace and extend through the wounded lands of Las Americas. They are sometimes calm, sometimes openly rebellious. Always festive, always meant to give nurturance, sustenance, warmth to the heart in calloused times.

The music is our kumana. We lay it at your feet amigos! It is music for regeneration and remembrance, a space for stoking the flames of festive rebellion and safeguarding the dignity of all of us…Runas. And remembering that…TODOS SOMOS HIJOS DE CAMPESINOS!

Radical Roots at Firestorm Cafe in Asheville, NC

Radical Roots is pumped to have the project hanging at Firestorm Cafe & Books in downtown Asheville (next to the Thirsty Monk on Commerce St). Firestorm invited us to display the project for the next 6 or 8 weeks, so if you're in or around the Asheville area this summer, be sure to stop in and check it out. A new addition to the exhibit is lamented copies of the interviews next to each photo. People have been asking about that since day one, and I finally got around to it. Thanks for all your feedback.

Firestorm Cafe & Books opened its doors in May of 2008. Established as a worker-owned and self-managed business, we aim to provide community space, critical literature and an alternative economic model based on cooperative, libertarian principles.

Here you'll find a wide range of events, workshops, film screenings, fund raisers and presentations. Additionally, we serve food and beverages all day long. Our edibles include delicious treats baked on site as well as hot and cold sandwiches and salads. For your caffeine fix, check out our extensive tea and espresso menu. We strive to maximize our use of local, organic and fair trade ingredients.

Our literature selection is a unique blend of off-beat, underground and independently published materials that you won't find anywhere else in WNC! We carry titles by AK Press, Autonomedia, Chelsea Green Publishing, Feral House, Loompanics, Microcosm, Paladin Press and many many others.

Behind the curtain, Firestorm Cafe & Books is run without bosses or supervisors, relying instead on a horizontal workplace. Each worker-owner is responsible for both weekly shift work and a share of managerial duties. Decision making is achieved using a formalized consensus process in which each participant has an equal voice. This cooperative environment creates a more empowering and enjoyable workplace while strengthening the business itself.

The ownership structure we require precludes us from applying for 501(c)3 nonprofit status; however, we are committed to a not-for-profit model and we will reinvest 100% of our earnings in the community once we are able to compensate labor at the equivalent of a livable wage.
 

Coal Lobby Warning...

In The Know: Coal Lobby Warns Wind Farms May Blow Earth Off Orbit

Excerpt From My Interview With Helen Lewis

This is a short excerpt from my interview with Helen Lewis about her early days teaching Appalachian Studies in Wise, VA. As a sociologist, scholar, community organizer, educator, and activist, Lewis has worked extensively throughout the region as Director of the Appalachian Center at Berea College, Director of Appalshop's Appalachian History Film Project, and Director of the Highlander Research and Education Center. At the young age of eighty-seven, she is semi-retired but continues to teach, write, consult and lecture. Lewis lives in the mountains in Morganton, Georgia with her three cats and stays actively involved with her local community. Interview and photograph may not be used without permission.

I’ve been in education nearly all my life, but I’ve always thought of myself more as an organizer of students than a teacher. I taught sociology at Clinch Valley College in Wise, Virginia for a number of years in the 60s and 70s. As a teacher I saw the value of studying sociology from the traditional academic perspective, but I felt strongly that people’s minds were most captivated through experience. So in my classes I had my students going out and talking to people in the community, conducting research in the courthouse, and taking fieldtrips to the places we were talking about. I wasn’t interested in picking up broken pieces in these rural communities but with changing the system itself—I wanted my students working for real social change. That’s what social work is all about, it seems to me.

When I first moved to Clinch Valley, strip mining was beginning, the mines were being mechanized, and the community was falling a part economically. A lot of families were leaving for Chicago, Cincinnati, and Detroit, any place they could find work. An enormous amount of local history was being lost with of all these rapid changes, so I designed my classes in a way that we could study and record the knowledge and experiences within local communities. Some of my students interviewed family members who worked in the mines while others collected oral histories of old time musicians in the area.

One of my early students, Jack Wright, had just come back from Vietnam and was a rock and roll musician. He didn’t have any particular interest in mountain music at that time, so I helped him arrange interviews with Doc Boggs and some of the other traditional musicians in the community. Beth Bingman, another student in that class, did an amazing study on a little coal camp in Esserville, a town that had thousands of coke ovens that burned and smoked and polluted the whole area. That community study took us into peoples homes who lived by the ovens, as well as into the businesses along the highway. These homes were in poor condition and didn’t have plumbing or running water. And the men were paid in script and many of the families were in debt to the company store where the script had to be spent. We put together a big book of all the stories we collected from each of these communities and put it in the library at Clinch Valley. It was about the only place where these stories were being told.

In my early years of teaching Appalachian Studies I had the students choose the topic we would study for the semester. So they would choose topic, come up with research questions, and help organize events and guest speakers throughout the semester. They were also in charge of planning a community forum every Wednesday night, a time where community members and students could come and learn about what we were doing and listen to a guest speaker. One semester the students chose to study music, so I asked Rich Kirby, a friend working at Appalshop, to make me a bunch of tapes of traditional ballads and other kinds of mountain music. My students listened to those tapes over and over, and then divided into groups to plan a community forum based on the musical tradition they had chosen. They were responsible for finding and booking the musicians, organizing the program, and running the show from start to finish. We had a little bit money to pay musicians, but some of the brought their grandmothers in to sing or play so it didn’t cost us much.

One semester we studied coal mining. We talked with strip miners, coal miners wives, and the owners of coal companies. At one of our forums we arranged for a few doctors from West Virginia to come and talk about black lung disease. The students thought we should invite disabled miners, so the doctors talked with the Black Lung Organization and let the word out that we would be happy to host anyone who was interested. We thought a hand full of folks might show up, but we ended up having to move the class to the gymnasium after over 450 disabled miners showed up. After the program the students set up a table and put up a sign that read, “To join the Virginia Black Lung Movement sign up here.” Well, there was no such thing as the Virginia Black Lung Movement! They started it right there out of that class.

That same semester Frankie Taylor wanted to study the tax records of coal companies in the region. So he took this adding machine—we didn’t have computers in these days—down to the courthouse and told them he wanted to see the tax records of all the coal companies working in the area. That was public information, of course, but they told Frankie, “You’re gonna get in trouble, boy. You can’t do this.” But that’s what Frankie ended up studying, and it did cause a little stir.

We also invited Jock Yablonski, the United Mine Workers (UMW) reform candidate, to come and speak at one of our community forums. He got back to me and said he was afraid to come to Wise County because it was a pro-Boyle county. Tony Boyle was the current UMWA president and widely known for political corruption and for taking sides with mine owners rather than the miners themselves. The head of the union in Wise, a Boyle supporter, knew that I had invited Yablonski, so he was not happy with what I was doing with my students. We couldn’t get Yablonski to come to Wise, so we went over to Grundy to see him speak. When the election came up my students helped set up and run the poles. These were the kinds of things that made the coal companies very upset with us. They were angry that I my students working with grassroots community groups, for digging through tax records, and for supporting union reform. The chancellor at Clinch Valley told me, “The Union is against you, and the coal operators are against you too. I’m having a hard time with this.” 

I started receiving threats because the work I was doing with my students. Someone threatened to burn my house down. My husband, of course, was very upset with all of this. I was too much of an activist for him, something that was part of the break up of our marriage. But this was the kind of teaching I was doing, and the program was really good. It wasn’t time for me to stop. Each week all of these remarkable things were happening and I could see my students making all of these important connections between resource extraction and poverty. Instead of being removed from the social and economic problems of the region, they were study and understanding these issues through the curriculum itself.

While I was teaching these classes in Appalachian Studies I also taught a class called Urban Sociology. I didn’t think it would do much good talking about urban sociology without visiting urban areas, so during the January term I took my students to New York City for a few weeks. I made arrangements to stay at the YMCA dormitory in Mid-town, and we started a program learning about New York City’s Puerto Rican community. We wanted to explore the social and political issues Puerto Rican immigrants were facing in New York City and look for ways to apply those experiences to our context in Appalachia. So we went out and talked with immigrants, visited agencies, and met with community leaders. We met with the Black Panthers and with the New York chapter of the Young Lords, a group fighting for democratic rights for Puerto Ricans communities. The Young Lords set up community projects similar to those of the Black Panthers but with a Latino flavor, such as free breakfast programs, dental clinics, and community day care centers. One day we visited a church where the Young Lords were running one of their breakfast programs and met with one of the leaders. He told us his personal story and how the group came about. As he was finishing he told us, “Anytime you try to make any changes you get killed. There’s John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. We’ll probably be next.”

We left the church and went to Times Square and into a record store. When we walked in Taj Mahal was singing “Oh Death,” a song written by Doc Boggs, the old coal miner from Norton who had been to our classes and who Jack had interviewed. When we walked outside I looked up at the news ticker and it read: Jock Yablonski Killed with Wife and Daughter. I couldn’t believe it. It was the most incredible experience standing there with all of these things converging. One of my students said, “Remember what that man said in the church?” So we went back to the dormitory and stayed up all night talking about what had happened and trying to understand how all the pieces fit together. You can’t plan those kinds of learning experiences.

Mappalachia Project at Berea College

After World War II, Berea College created a general studies course called "Man and the Humanities," in which students studied literature, music, and art. One of the first assignments asked students to draw their home community. Over the four-decade life of this course, some 7,000 drawings were saved. Because many of the students who came to Berea during these years were from Appalachia, these drawings are now primary sources that offer revealing glimpses of Appalachian life over the last half of the twentieth century. Mappalachia is an effort to make the drawings accessible to scholars, alumni, and the wider public. For more information about the project or to view the gallery of maps, click HERE.

Was Abe Lincoln a Tar Heel?

Lincoln knew little about his family and apparently did not wish to pursue a genealogical investigation. He always said that his parents were originally from Virginia—that his mother was Nancy Hanks and his father, Thomas Lincoln, was the son of Abraham Lincoln, but that they were not connected to the wealthy New England Lincolns. Lincoln’s cousin Dennis Hanks, who, being of an age between Nancy and Abraham, grew up as friends of both, provided a few more details on the Hanks family. From Dennis Hanks Americans learned that Nancy Hanks was the daughter of Lucy, who was the sister of his mother, also named Nancy. The proclivity for Hankses to name daughters Nancy plays a significant role in the confusion.

Despite Lincoln’s own disregard for his genealogy, the general public, it seems, remained keenly interested in Lincoln’s family tree. The paucity of information, unfortunately, left room for fabrication. What likely began as an attempt to discredit the president during the Civil War has snowballed over the years. In 1861 a woman in Nelson County, Kentucky, told a newspaper reporter that Abraham Lincoln’s real name was Abraham Enlow and that he was a thief who ran off to Illinois and changed his name. She said that old Abe Enlow “has become a traitor president, under the stolen name Abe Lincoln. But we all said that [he] would never come to any good end.”

The connection between Abraham Lincoln and Abraham Enlow/Enloe/Inlow (the name and its variations were common in the early 1800s) would flourish. In March 1863 an article appeared in the Wilmington Journal stating that Lincoln was the son of Abraham Inlow of Hardin County, Kentucky. Later that year, a man wrote to Secretary of State William H. Seward to expose the president as “the illegitimate son by a man named Inlow.” The story of Lincoln’s illegitimacy found seed in many communities, especially those with Enloes and Hankses. About a dozen stories arose claiming to expose Lincoln’s true father, and of those, four were men named Abraham Enloe (or Enlow/Inlow). Besides Enloe, it was also said that Senator John C. Calhoun fathered Lincoln with Nancy Hanks, a South Carolina tavern keeper’s daughter. Some even said that Lincoln and Jefferson Davis shared a father. North Carolina boasted three fathers of the president—an Enloe, a Martin, and a Springs. However, the rumors that began as libel intended to discredit the Great Emancipator have become legends steeped in civic pride.

The North Carolina Abraham Enloe story first published in book form in 1899 by James H. Cathey as The Genesis of Lincoln is based on circumstantial evidence and oral tradition. In short, it is as follows: A young Nancy Hanks arrived in the state through various means, depending on the version, and ended up in the household of Abraham Enloe of Rutherford County. Abraham Enloe got Hanks pregnant and was forced to move west due to embarrassment. Most versions of the story have Hanks giving birth in Rutherford County after the Enloe family had moved on to Haywood County. Enloe then sent her to Kentucky and paid Thomas Lincoln, either a wandering horse trader or an itinerant farm laborer, to marry her. The birth took place, depending on the version, between 1804 and 1806, in order to fit the time frame of Enloe’s life. The legend also requires that Lincoln be born before his older sister, as Enloe would not have waited for the second child to send Nancy Hanks away. Lincoln’s ability to pass for three years younger, even as a small child, was explained by people’s accepting that he was simply “tall for his age.”

Documents related to Abraham Enloe can be found in the State Archives but ones that support his fathering Abraham Lincoln do not exist. A 2005 publication on the subject included several abstracted census records that are not true to the originals. For example, in presenting evidence from the 1800 federal census for Rutherford County, the author records a Nancy Hanks aged sixteen living in the household of Abraham Enloe. Not only does the 1800 census not provide names for anyone other than the head of household, but the author’s ages of the various household members do not match up with what is on the original. The author also merged at two or three Abraham Enloes in an attempt to prove the legend.

A 2003 book about Lincoln’s supposed North Carolina roots includes copious footnotes; however they lead the reader merely to secondary sources and oral traditions. The only original document mentioned in the book is the marriage license between Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks. Yet the authors discounted the veracity of the paper saying that even though it “was found in a courthouse,” there is no reason to believe that it is authentic. North Carolina’s Enloe is described by most proponents of the tale as a large slaveholder and slave trader and a man who made peace with the Cherokee. Records in the State Archives, however, show a man who owned at various times no more than four slaves (none in 1800) and a man who was involved in a lawsuit brought by Cherokee Chief Yonaguska.

The North Carolina story often described Nancy living with her drunken “Uncle Dickey” (Richard) Hanks. The “Uncle Dickey” story seems to be an attempt to make a Hanks connection whereby Nancy Hanks can be placed in North Carolina. The story goes that he could not take care of her, that he was an alcoholic who was often in jail, and as a consequence she was sent to live with the Enloes. However, records show Richard Hanks, who lived in Lincoln County and later Gaston, to be a man of responsibility and property. Court minutes do not indicate that he was a public nuisance. A Revolutionary War veteran, Hanks was supported in his claim for a pension by his clergyman. Finally, Nancy Hanks, the mother of Abraham Lincoln, did not have an uncle named Richard Hanks.

The entire effort to defend the legend is based on undocumented oral tradition and poor interpretation of the few available primary sources. Yet North Carolina’s Abraham Enloe legend endures and is, in fact, the focus of the Bostic Lincoln Center in Rutherford County. The mission of the center, www.bosticlincolncenter.com, is to research, document, and preserve the “generational lore” of Abraham Lincoln’s birth in North Carolina.

(via www.nccivilwar150.com)

Be With Me There

Those I Want in Heaven With Me (Should There Be Such a Place)
James Still

First I want my dog Jack,
Granted that Mama and Papa are there,
And my nine brothers and sisters,
And “Aunt” Fanny who diapered me, comforted me, shielded me,
Aunt Enore who was too good for this world,
And the grandpa who used to bite my ears,
And the other one who couldn’t remember my name—
There were so many of us;
And Uncle Edd—“Eddie Boozer” they called him—
Who had devils dancing in his eyes,
And Uncle Luther who laughed so loud in the churchyard
He had to apologize to the congregation,
And Uncle Joe who saved the first dollar he ever earned,
And the last one, and all those in between;
And Aunt Carrie who kept me informed:
“Too bad you’re not good looking like your daddy”;
And my first sweetheart, who died at sixteen,
Before she got around to saying “Yes”;

I want my dog Jack nipping at my heels,
Who was my boon companion,
Suddenly gone when I was six;
And I want Rusty, my ginger pony,
Who took me on my first journey—
Not far, yet far enough for the time.

I want the play fellows of my youth
Who gathered bumblebees in bottles,
Erected flutter mills by streams,
Flew kites nearly to heaven,
And who before me saw God.

Be with me there.

(photo via Appalshop)

March on Blair Mountain, Day 3

Last Saturday marked the start of the March on Blair Mountain, an effort to save the site of a historic labor battle from destruction by coal companies and to bring an end to mountaintop removal mining. (For updates on the March visit http://marchonblairmountain.org).

Expected to draw about 600 people, the march is organized by the Blair Mountain Coalition and Appalachia Rising, a movement that uses nonviolent direct action to advocate for a more sustainable future for the region. It commemorates the 90th anniversary of the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain, when as many as 10,000 coal miners gathered in Logan County, W.Va. and faced off against coal companies and their private security forces in a bloody effort to unionize. The five-day battle was the largest armed insurrection in the United States since the Civil War and ended after the U.S. Army intervened.

Today there's a new battle on Blair Mountain -- this time over the fate of the land. Much of it is owned by Arch Coal of St. Louis and Virginia-based Alpha Natural Resources, which last week bought out Massey Energy.

Last year an alliance of environmental and historic preservation groups filed a lawsuit challenging the National Park Service's decision to remove the Blair Mountain Battlefield from the National Register of Historic Places, a move that leaves the land vulnerable to coal companies that have their sights set on mining the area. At least five locations within the battlefield have already been disturbed by mining, according to a report released last year by the Friends of Blair Mountain.

Just last week, six environmental and historic preservation groups petitioned the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to declare the site unsuitable for surface mining "due to its historical significance, natural beauty and the important archaeological sites located there."

The march kicks off today in Marmet, W.Va., and over the next five days participants will walk 50 miles to Blair. The gathering will culminate in a rally and day of action on Saturday, June 11.

March organizers say that the current plans to mine Blair Mountain dishonor the memory of the scores of miners killed in the battle and will destroy one of Appalachia's most significant heritage sites. Among those who have called for preserving the site is United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts, who earlier this year called Blair Mountain "as close to sacred ground as there is for the UMWA."

"As citizens in Wisconsin and across the country stand up to maintain their right to collectively bargain, Blair Mountain stands as a physical reminder of the struggles of previous generations of workers to establish those rights," says Brandon Nida, a Friends of Blair Mountain board member. "It is a place where a new solidarity for the 21st century will be forged between all of those fighting for workers, communities, and our mountains."

(via southernstudies.org)

Student-Based Oral History Projects

It's bright and sunny and warm here in the Carolinas. Still have to pull on a sweater at night, but it's nice to finally have the piles of quilts off the bed, the front door wide open, the garden in full swing. We could do without the carpenter bees. Any advice?

I've been working through the current issue of The Oral History Review, the journal of the Oral History Association. It has some excellent papers on the intersect of oral history and theology, the art of listening and reflexivity, oral history, democracy and civic engagement, and inter-generational memory collecting. The papers capture several obvious but essential elements of oral history; that history is not just about the great men and women of history books--kings and queens, presidents and statesmen, warriors and diplomats. Nor is it just about great events like wars and elections and natural disasters and stock market crashes. History is about and is shaped by the seemingly little people: the ordinary folk who in mundane and often imperceptible ways participated in and witnessed key events in our history. Their stories matter too.

Here are some examples of student-based oral history projects that are documenting the vital stories of such 'ordinary' folk:

Civic Voices: An International Democracy Memory Bank Project is building an inspirational and educational tool for transmitting the stories of the world's great democratic struggles from one generation of citizens to the next. It is a partnership between teachers’ unions and other partners in eight countries: Colombia, Georgia, Mongolia, Northern Ireland, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa and the U.S.

Fox Point Oral History Project: Through the Fox Point Oral History Project, graduate students in public humanities at Brown University work with community elders and with students, parents, and teachers at a neighborhood elementary school to document, preserve, and present local history.

Telling Their Stories--Oral History Archives Project: OHAP is a combination of a high school elective history course at The Urban School of San Francisco, a digital video oral history production protocol, a public Web site, and a growing collaboration with other educational institutions from around the country. Students learn oral history technique, conduct two-hour long video-recorded interviews, complete the transcription, edit movies, and publish to the OHAP website. Most OHAP interviews deal with witnesses of key twentieth century events involving acts of discrimination, including survivors, witnesses and liberators of the Nazi Holocaust, Japanese American internees, and elders involved in the southern Civil Rights Movement.

Robert F. Kennedy on The Colbert Report

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Coal "Ghost Towns" Loom in West Virginia

(CNN Money) West Virginia's coal industry helped insulate the local economy from the worst of the recession, but now the state could be in danger of losing that crutch.

As other states face major budget shortfalls, West Virginia is expecting a surplus for the fourth year in a row. It hasn't had to lay off state employees, and it boasts one of the strongest rainy-day funds in the country -- mostly due to a run-up in coal prices over the last few years.

But West Virginia is dealing with a crisis of its own, as its coal industry faces increased competition from other regions and heightened scrutiny from government regulators.

The federal government predicts coal production in Central Appalachia -- which includes West Virginia's southern coal fields -- will decline 40% in the next five years, resulting in the loss of thousands of jobs there.

That could be a death knell for places like Boone County, where roughly 3,800 of its 8,600-person workforce are employed by 93 mines. And that doesn't include jobs that support the industry indirectly.

Read more HERE.

(via money.cnn.com)

Storytelling 101 With Ira Glass

Massey Energy: Guilty

"An independent state probe in West Virginia concludes that mining giant, Massey Energy, was responsible for the April 2010 explosion that killed 29 underground coal mining workers. It echoes preliminary findings by federal investigators earlier this year that Massey repeatedly violated federal rules on ventilation and minimizing coal dust to reduce the risk of explosion, and rejects Massey’s claim that a burst of gas from a hole in the mine floor was at fault. The report also notes Massey’s strong political influence, which it uses "to attempt to control West Virginia’s political system" and regulatory bodies. We speak with J. Davitt McAteer, who oversaw the probe and is a former top federal mine safety official."

The Funnies

 

 

 

 

 

The Last Mountain

In the valleys of Appalachia, a battle is being fought over a mountain. It is a battle with severe consequences that affect every American, regardless of their social status, economic background or where they live. It is a battle that has taken many lives and continues to do so the longer it is waged. It is a battle over protecting our health and environment from the destructive power of Big Coal.

The mining and burning of coal is at the epicenter of America’s struggle to balance its energy needs with environmental concerns. Nowhere is that concern greater than in Coal River Valley, West Virginia, where a small but passionate group of ordinary citizens are trying to stop Big Coal corporations, like Massey Energy, from continuing the devastating practice of Mountain Top Removal.

A passionate and personal tale that honors the extraordinary power of ordinary Americans when they fight for what they believe in, THE LAST MOUNTAIN shines a light on America’s energy needs and how those needs are being supplied. It is a fight for our future that affects us all.

From Eureka Mill (The Bench Press)

Brown Lung
Ron Rash

Sometimes I’d spend the whole night coughing up
what I’d been breathing in all day at work.
I’d sleep in a chair or take a good stiff drink,
anything to get a few hours rest.

The doctor called it asthma and suggested
I find a different line of work as if
a man who had no land or education
could find himself another way to live.

For that advice I paid a half-day’s wage.
Who said advice is cheap? It got so bad
each time I got a break at work I’d find
the closest window, try to catch a breath.

My foreman was a decent man who knew
I would not last much longer on that job.
He got me transferred out of the card room,
let me load the boxcars in the yard.

But even though I slept more I’d still wake
gasping for air at least one time a night,
and when I dreamed I dreamed of bumper crops
of Carolina cotton in my chest.

Did Wendell Just Say, 'Radical Roots Project?'

Well, no (though see the highlights below), but here is a transcript of his remarks from the Future of Food Conference, held May 4 at Georgetown University. You can see a video of his speech HERE.
 
Our fundamental problem is world destruction, caused by an irreconcilable contradiction between the natural world and the engineered world of industrialism. This conflict between nature and human interest may have begun with the first tools and weapons, but only with the triumph of industrialism has it become absolute. By now the creaturely world is absolutely at the mercy of industrial processes, which are doing massive ecological damage. How much of this damage may be repairable by economic and cultural changes remains to be seen.

Industrial destructiveness, anyhow, is our disease. Most of our most popular worries — climate change, fossil fuel addiction, pollution, poverty, hunger and the various forms of legitimated violence — are symptoms. If, for example, we were somehow granted a limitless supply of cheap, clean energy, we would continue and even accelerate our destruction of the world by agricultural erosion, chemical poisoning, industrial war, industrial recreation and various forms of “development.”

And there is no use in saying that if we can invent the nuclear bomb and fly to the moon, we can solve hunger and related problems of land use. Epic feats of engineering require only a few brilliant technicians and a lot of money. But feeding a world of people year to year for a long time requires cultures of husbandry fitted to the nature of millions of unique small places — precisely the kind of cultures that industrialism has purposely disvalued, uprooted and destroyed.

Hard as it may be for a dislocated, miseducated, consumptive society to accept and for its pet economists to believe, the future of food is not distinguishable from the future of the land, which is indistinguishable, in turn, from the future of human care. It depends ultimately on the health not of the financial system, but of the ecosphere. In the interest of that health, we will have to bring all the disciplines, all the arts and sciences, into conformity with the nature of places.

Like other species, we will have to submit to the necessity of local adaptation. I am sure that somebody will wish to remind me of the migrations of birds, animals and insects, and also of migrations by humans from earliest times. Did these involve local adaptation? Yes; except for those of industrial humans using fossil fuel, all of these migrations have been made under the rule of local adaptation. The hummingbird successfully crossing the Gulf of Mexico is adapted, mile by mile, to the distance; it does not exceed its own mental and physical capacities, and it makes the trip, exactly like pre-industrial human migrants, on contemporary energy.

For humans, local adaptation is not work for a few financiers and a few intellectual and political hotshots. This is work for everybody, requiring everybody’s intelligence. It is work inherently democratic.

What must we do?

First, we must not work or think on a heroic scale. In our age of global industrialism, heroes too lightly risk the lives of people, places and things they do not see. We must work on a scale proper to our limited abilities. We must not break things we cannot fix. There is no justification, ever, for permanent ecological damage. If this imposes the verdict of guilt upon us all, so be it.

Second, we must abandon the homeopathic delusion that the damages done by industrialization can be corrected by more industrialization.

Third, we must quit solving our problems by “moving on.” We must try to stay put and to learn where we are geographically, historically and ecologically.

Fourth, we must learn, if we can, the sources and costs of our own economic lives.

Fifth, we must give up the notion that we are too good to do our own work and clean up our own messes. It is not acceptable for this work to be done for us by wage slavery or by enslaving nature.

Sixth, by way of correction, we must make local, locally adapted economies, based on local nature, local sunlight, local intelligence and local work.

Seventh, we must understand that these measures are radical. They go to the root of our problem. They cannot be performed for us by any expert, political leader or corporation.

This is an agenda that may be undertaken by ordinary citizens at any time, on their own initiative. In fact, it describes an effort already undertaken all over the world by many people. It defines also the expectation that citizens who, by their gifts, are exceptional will not shirk the most humble service.

(via www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food)

Egypt, Fried Chicken, And A Little Kentucky History

In the early days of Egypt's anti-government uprising this winter, some journalists attempted to label it the "Koshary Revolution" after Egypt's traditional dish of rice, lentils, macaroni, and fried onions. But Hosni Mubarak's embattled regime was hoping to tie the protesters to a more sinister foodstuff: Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Reports on state television described protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square munching on free buckets of KFC, seeing them as proof of subversive foreign influence, though independent journalists at the scene couldn't find a particularly high number of KFC eaters. The U.S. chain has about 100 restaurants in Egypt, compared with fewer than 60 for McDonald's, but the price of a meal, which can be up to three days' wages, makes it a rare delicacy for most Egyptians. There were also reports of the government paying its thugs with chicken dinners, and street vendors jokingly began shouting "Kentucky" to hawk everything from popcorn to falafel.

Surprisingly, this wasn't the first time that KFC has been cast as the enemy in the Muslim world. In 2006, Pakistani rioters burned down a KFC in response to the Danish Mohammed cartoons controversy. This followed another -- and seemingly even more random -- burning of a KFC one year earlier by a mob angered by a suicide bombing at a mosque in Karachi.

What's so Kentuckian about KFC, anyway? They're headquartered in Louisville, if that means anything, but then so is Papa's Johns Pizza and Texas Roadhouse (yes, Texas Roadhouse). So here's more. The company was founded by the jovial Colonel Harland Sanders in 1952, though he first served his fried chicken in 1930 in the midst of the Great Depression at a gas station he owned in North Corbin, Kentucky. The dining area was named Sanders Court & Café and was so successful that in 1935 Kentucky Governor Ruby Laffoon granted Sanders the title of honorary Kentucky Colonel in recognition of his contribution to the state's cuisine.

The following year Sanders expanded his restaurant to 142 seats, and added a motel he bought across the street. When Sanders prepared his chicken in his original restaurant in North Corbin, he prepared the chicken in an iron skillet, which took about 30 minutes to do, too long for a restaurant operation. In 1939, Sanders altered the cooking process for his fried chicken to use a pressure fryer, resulting in a greatly reduced cooking time comparable to that of deep frying. In 1940 Sanders devised what came to be known as his Original Recipe.

Sanders sold the entire KFC franchising operation in 1964 for $2 million, equal to $14,161,464 today. Since that time, the chain has been sold three more times: to Heublein in 1971, to R.J. Reynolds (the tobacco company) in 1982 and most recently to PepsiCo in 1986.

What about that secret recipe? They now keep a handwritten copy of spice mix in a vault in corporate headquarters, though there have been some leaks in the past. Following the buyout of the company in 1964, Colonel Sanders himself expressed anger a new owner, saying:

"That friggin'...outfit...they prostituted every goddamn thing I had. I had the greatest gravy in the world and those sons of bitches--they dragged it out and extended it and watered it down that I'm so goddamn mad!"

(via foreignpolicy.org, wikipedia.org, and The McDondaldization of Society)

Murphy, North Carolina

Maria Gunnoe Featured Speaker at 2011 Mountainfilm Festival

Boone County, WV native Maria Gunnoe will be a featured speaker at this years Mountainfilm Festival in Teluride, CO. Mountainfilm is dedicated to educating and inspiring audiences about issues that matter, cultures worth exploring, environments worth preserving and conversations worth sustaining. In addition to screening leading independent documentary films from around the world, the festival includes a full-day symposium on a pressing contemporary issue such as energy (2007), water (2008), food (2009) and the extinction crisis (2010). In addition to films and speakers, the festival includes art exhibits, book signings, student workshops and a forum for other non-profit organizations aligned with Mountainfilm’s mission and programming.

Maria has been fighting against mountaintop removal mining and valley fill operations in the Coal River Valley for quite some time. She was a recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2009--one of the most prestigious and longest running awards of its type--and has fought and won many battles both in her local Boone County and farther afield. How exciting to have her representing Appalachia and the issues with coal and mountaintop removal to such a diverse, global audience!

New Take On An Old Standby

This great lyric was passed to me by writer/artist/activist Cesco di Santis of the Portrait Story Project. It's his reworking of Guthrie's classic "This Land is Your Land." For more on Cesco and his work, see the links below. Folk musicians, pick up your guitars...

This Appalachian Land (Ain’t) Your Land

As I went walkin', that wooded holler

I felt a blast shake, from way down yonder

Pickin' persimmons at Rock Creek, had a gun pulled up ta mah cheek

'Cuz I thought this land belonged to you and me

This land is Massey land, It is not your land

from the tumblin' flyrock, right to the pow'r plant

from the deep dark coal seam, to the billowin' smoke stack

This land reeks of "coal country"

As I went walkin' out on that flat land

I so did wonder, where my holler went

Well, the company man said, he reclaimed it

Well, this "reclaiming" ain't for you and me

I've seen this green land, turned to wasteland

From the ridgeline draglined into the valley fill

From the first core sample, right to the railroad tracks

This land's exported from you and me

Well, the public hearing turned out to be . . .

. . . just another coal rally

The drunken mob went there just to tell me

This land's just for the company

This land ain't my land, nor is it your land

From the Cumberlands to the Allegenies

From the fields of Bluegrass to the Smoky mountains

These coalfields're fer electricity

Call Mister King Coal, at his office,

And say "Sir, How could you do this?"

He'll say, "You dumb treehuggin' commie . . .

. . . This land was made just for me!"

"This land is my Land! It is not your Land!

From the overworked miners, all my minions

from the Oxycontin, to the slurry injections

Yer all awash in my wastestream!"

From Bloody Harlan to Blair Mountain,

From the Wall Street Meltdown to the corporate bailouts

From the greenwashers to the bloody war machine

Was this land ever for you and me?

From the mesas, to the valleys

From the Everglades to the Rocky mountains

Everywhere I go, I ask my people,

Could land land survive for you and me?

Could this be your Land? Could it be my Land?

All throughout Turtle Island

From the clearcut Redwoods to the Gulf Stream oil slick,

Could this land heal with you and me?

Read more about Cesco and his projects here:

http://portraitstoryproject.org

http://voicesforappalachia.org

http://www.mountainjustice.org/portrait_story_project/index.php

http://www.unitedmountaindefense.org/outreach_and_education.html

Radical Roots Project Wins e-Appalachia Website of the Year

 

The Radical Roots Project is excited to have been honored with this years e-Appalachia Award for Outstanding Website by the Appalachian Studies Association (ASA). The award, which was first issued in 2002, is based on the content, design and mission statement of websites dealing with Appalachia and its people. We are thrilled to join such a prestigious group of sites, which in previous years have been Journey Up Coal River, I Love Mountains, and the Kentucky Artisan Heritage Trails. Radical Roots founder Taylor Kirkland, and website designer David Lezette accepted the award on March 12th in Richmond, KY at ASA's 34th Annual Conference. 

So what's next? I still have several interviews going out to publishers. A photo essay is on the burners. More interviews are on their way in the following months. We're getting wild amounts of traffic here on the blog so keeping it up to date keeps these fingers busy. I'm also seeking funds to develop Radical Roots into an organization that will work with youth on cultural preservation and documentary skills here in the mountains of North Carolina. The roots of this project are really starting to develop--and I need help. If you'd like to help nourish us you can make a tax deductible donation by contacting Taylor at radicalrootsproject@gmail.com. 

Thanks so much for all who made this award possible!

http://radicalrootsproject.org

Komos Ison's Molasses Stir Off, September 2010

Annual event takes place on Kingdom Come Creek, Letcher County, KY.

"Coal" Comes to Spike TV

"Spike TV and reality powerhouse-producer Thom Beers have excavated 10, one-hour episodes of an all-new original series entitled Coal. The unscripted program will explore the world of coal mining through the eyes of Mike Crowder and Tom Roberts, co-owners of Cobalt Mine in Westchester, West Virginia. Giving an unprecedented look at one of the world's most dangerous and valuable professions, Coal will premiere on Spike in March 2011.

Striking up a partnership while watching their sons practice football, Crowder and Roberts will lead their more than 40 machine operators, foremen, electricians, and drivers into one of the most dangerous workplaces on the planet.  Every aspect of the job will be covered, from the dangers behind the super-charged explosions needed to open surface mines, to the well-publicized daily dangers of working in the dark recesses of the earth's crust in a traditional shaft mine.  As they face the daily pressure to keep the mine up and running and their workers safe, family men Crowder and Roberts will rely on the support of their loved ones to tackle the mine's daily demands."

(via www.spike.com)

The 2010 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal Ceremony

Some of the nation's finest artists, scholars, and entertainers were at the White House this week where President Obama awarded the National Medal of Arts and the National Humanities Medal. Our good friend Wendell Berry was among those honored. (Fast-forward to 19:35 to see Berry's acceptance).