Tag: Appalachia

Underfoot

Underfoot

Emily Morrell, illustrations by Kristin Solecki
“Rye Whisky”

“Rye Whisky”

Michael McFee, illustrations by Natalie Nelson
Reading Foxfire

Reading Foxfire

Jessica Wilkerson, illustrations by Becca Stadtlander
The Making of Appalachian Mississippi

The Making of Appalachian Mississippi

Justin Randolph

In October 1967, Mississippi joined the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), a Great Society program that distributed federal money to local governments across mountainous states like West Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina. There’s just one problem: Mississippi lacks mountains. This article explores how segregationist Southern Democrats came together with northern liberals to reimagine and remap Mississippi as a place not reeling from the legacies of plantation slavery but merely suffering from a lack of economic development. I argue that this movement to invent “Appalachian Mississippi” countered the liberal War on Poverty’s economic empowerment of rural Black communities and tapped into larger currents of color-blind popular music. In considering the first hit song from a native of Appalachian Mississippi, Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe,” this article suggests that popular culture resonated with political intrigue to redistribute American wealth through the South’s white powerbrokers.

The High and Lonesome Art of John Cohen and Roscoe Halcomb

The High and Lonesome Art of John Cohen and Roscoe Halcomb

Grace Elizabeth Hale
Curers, Charms, and Curses / Meddygon, Swynion, a Melltithion

Curers, Charms, and Curses / Meddygon, Swynion, a Melltithion

Peter Stevenson
Silent Ballad

Silent Ballad

Intro and photographs by Rachel Boillot
There’s More of It, But I’m Still Hungry

There’s More of It, But I’m Still Hungry

Courtney Balestier with photos by Elaine McMillion Sheldon
First Saturday in May

First Saturday in May

Tom Rankin
“Well, We’re Fabulous and We’re Appalachians, So We’re Fabulachians”

“Well, We’re Fabulous and We’re Appalachians, So We’re Fabulachians”

by Rae Garringer
Semantic Relations

Semantic Relations

Adrian Blevins
Pearl S. Buck, It’s Not You, It’s Me

Pearl S. Buck, It’s Not You, It’s Me

Jolie Lewis