Racial Violence in Southern Appalachia, 1880-1940

Racial Violence in Southern Appalachia, 1880-1940 Robert P. Stuckert A widely held misconception has been that life for black people in the southern mountains was less oppressive than in the rest ofthe South. In 1916, Carter Woodson wrote: In the mountainous region . . . people . . . have always differed from the dwellers in the district near the sea not only in their attitude toward slavery but in the policy they have followed in dealing with blacks since the Civil War. One can observe even to-day such a difference in the atmosphere of the two sections, that in passing from the tidewater to the mountains it seems like going from one country to another. There is still in the back country, of course, much of that lawlessness that shames the South, but crime in that section is not peculiarly the persecution of the Negro. Almost any one considered undesirable is dealt with unceremoniously. In Appalachian America the races still maintain a sort of social contact. White and black men work side by side, visit each other in their homes, and often attend the same church to listen with delight to the Word spoken by either a colored or white preacher.1 Although this may have been true at an earlier period in the mountains , it was largely legend by the time Woodson wrote these words. It Robert P. Stuckert is professor of sociology at Berea College. He has conducted extensive research on blacks and other minorities in Appalachia and has been widely published in both regional and national journals. 35 is true that black and white people did get along with each other in many parts of Appalachia after the Civil War in ways seldom found in the non-Appalachian portions of the southern states. It was an extremely fragile relationship, however, since it was based on the isolation of many mountain communities. The coming of the outsiders introduced a degree of tension and conflict that disrupted the lives of people in the mountains, including relations between the races. Prior to 1880, virtually all of the Appalachian region was rural with the overwhelming proportion of the population—both white and black— engaged in farming. "The decades from 1880 to 1930 were years of transition and change . . . The coming of the railroads, the building of towns and villages, and the general expansion of industrial employment greatly altered the traditional patterns of mountain life."2 This was the period in which segregation and violence was escalating throughout the South. The following events occurred between 1880 and 1940 in 212 mountain counties in seven states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Only incidents of collective or mob violence have been included. It is quite difficult to measure the level of racial violence in the mountains. Statistics are few in number. Many incidents went unreported. Many others went unnoticed by the larger society. Like much of what happened in the mountains , such events were not considered to be of significance. Some made it into the news media. A few others made it into the realm of the tale, the novel, the short story, or the song. A continuing but unknown number of cases of lesser forms ofviolence—beatings, intimidations, and nonlethal shootings—occurred throughout the period. Beginning in the 1880s, the level of racial violence increased rapidly. In the mountains, black people found themselves in an even more vulnerable position than they did in the non-Appalachian South. The region was more rural than the rest of the South. Their numbers were far smaller and their economic position was more marginal. In few places were they depended on as a major source of labor. In addition, almost all of the known incidents of racial violence occurred in counties that were undergoing industrial or demographic change. Racial violence took many forms in the mountains. From the 1880s, the number of black persons that were lynched increased each year until 1892-1893, when 25 black persons were lynched in Appalachia. The number oflynchings decreased from that point on. The largest numbers occurred in Georgia, Virginia, and West Virginia. More than 125 black persons were lynched in the mountains. 36 Table 1: Number of Lynchings...