Blacks In Appalachia (review)

rhetorical abstractions. Jones took pains to avoid current biographical modes of adulation and expose, seeking, like Bascom, to bring polarities into harmony. Perhaps students at Mars Hill, Cullowhee, Boone, Chapel Hill, and points beyond will build upon this biography, reformulating and expanding the many questions hidden by Lunsford's achievements. I close with a stanza from one of my favorites in Bascom's songbag: I wish I was a mole in the ground; Yes, I wish I was a mole in the ground. If I was a mole in the ground, I'd root that mountain down. And, I wish I was a mole in the ground. Did Bascom Lamar Lunsford find a mole in his natal community, or across the county line at time of death? Who are to be tomorrow's moles? What mountain needs leveling? What mountain needs lifting? —Archie Green Blacks In Appalachia. William H. Turner ' and Edward J. Cabbell, editors. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1985. This long-awaited volume represents a significant beginning. Too long scholars have neglected the role of the Black minority among us. Now we have this beginning! It is basically a miscellany of articles and chapters from books that relate to Blacks in Appalachia , edited by two very different young regional scholars. Ed Cabbell has probably been at the task of compiling Black Appalachian materials longer than any other person , and his most useful contribution here is his annotated "Resource Guide." Bill Turner, the other editor, is at his absolute best in his study of Black demographic history which is the book's final essay. But one has to argue with some of their choice of articles. As is true of most compilations, the quality of the materials chosen is uneven. Some of the articles are excellent: David Corbin's chapter on overcoming race prejudice and the growth of class consciousness in the coal towns of southern West Virginia, drawn from his recent Life, Work and Rebellion in the Coal Fields (1981 Weatherford Award winner); Theda Perdue's most informative study of Black and Indian relations prior to the 1840s, adapted from her book, Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society (1979); and Turner's own history of Black demography. But many of the articles included here are easily available in other formats. Some are not, and these make this volume important both for scholars and libraries interested in Appalachian Studies. Some themes are grossly overblown here. The Berea story and the "betrayal of its bi70 racial experiment" in the 1892-1908 period, is told and retold, but never in quite the same way, nor are the details quite alike. Then, most of the articles—1 1 of the 21 essays—deal in one way or another with Blacks in coal mines. Such an emphasis on the importance of the Black coal miner seems unwarranted, especially since slavery and Blacks in agriculture are scarcely mentioned aside from the Perdue article on Black-Cherokee relations . At least two of the articles are unconvincing polemics. Three articles are oral history recollections that seem at first glance to be rather out of place. But the recollections of James E. Millner are inclusive and insightful, and provide perhaps the best sense of historical developments among Appalachian Blacks after World War I, of all the 21 articles included. Several of the great names in AfroAmerican Studies are presented here. These include: Carter G. Woodson's 1916 article, "Freedom and Slavery in Appalachian America," taken from the first volume of the Journal of Negro History; the portion of Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery (1901), that deals with his boyhood days in Mauldin, West Virginia; and.W.E.B. DuBois' treatment of the Black worker, drawn from his Black Reconstruction (1935). Of the three, the DuBois chapter, though from an undoubted classic, contributes little to our understanding of Appalachian Blacks, and his Marxian interpretation is not even very well stated here. The Woodson article, however, is one of the key studies of this volume. Though this book represents a very important first step, much remains to be done before we have a very clear picture of the role of Blacks in Appalachia. Building upon the...