Black Writers and Poets Are Upending Stereotypes About Appalachia

Affrilachian artistry and identity allows Appalachia to be fully seen as the diverse and culturally rich region that it is.

Why you can trust us

By Amy M. Alvarez &
Jameka Hartley

3 MIN READ

Apr 16, 2021

Appalachia, in the popular imagination, .

Open a dictionary a “native or inhabitant of Appalachia, especially one of predominantly Scotch-Irish, English, or German ancestry.”

Read J.D. Vance’s and you’ll enter a world that’s White, poor, and uncultured, with few, if any, people of color.

But as Black poets and scholars living in Appalachia, we know that this simplified portrayal obscures a world that is far more complex. It has always been a place filled with diverse inhabitants and endowed with a lush literary history. Black writers like have been part of this cultural landscape as far back as the 19th century. Today, Black writers and poets continue to explore what it means to be Black and from Appalachia.

Swimming against cultural currents, they have long struggled to be heard. But a turning point took place 30 years ago, when Black Appalachian culture experienced a renaissance centered around a single word: “Affrilachia.”

Upending a “Single Story” of Appalachia

In the 1960s, the officially defined the Appalachian region as an area including counties in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and all of West Virginia. The designation brought national attention—and calls for economic equity— that had largely been ignored.

When President Lyndon B. Johnson declared his “war on poverty” in 1964, . However, as pernicious as the effects of poverty have been for White rural Appalachians, , thanks to the long-term repercussions of slavery, Jim Crow laws, racial terrorism, and a dearth of regional welfare programs.

Black Appalachians have long been, , “a neglected minority within a neglected minority.”

Nonetheless, throughout the 20th century, Black Appalachian writers like and continued to write and wrestle with what it meant to be both Black and Appalachian.

In 1991, after a poetry reading that included Black poets from the Appalachian region, Kentucky poet decided to give a name to his experience as a Black Appalachian: “Affrilachian.” It subsequently became the he released in 2000.

By coining the terms “Affrilachia” and “Affrilachian,” Walker sought to upend assumptions about who is part of Appalachia. Writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has spoken of the . When “one story becomes the only story,” she said in a 2009 TED Talk, “it robs people of dignity.”

Rather than accepting the single story of Appalachia as White and poor, Walker wrote a new one, forging a path for Black Appalachian artists.

It caught on.

In 2001, a number of Affrilachian poets—including Walker, Kelly Norman Ellis, Crystal Wilkinson, Ricardo Nazario y Colon, Gerald Coleman, Paul C. Taylor, and Shanna Smith—were the subjects of the documentary “.” In 2007, the journal was founded out of University of Kentucky with the goal of promoting a diverse range of Affrilachian writers at the national level. In 2016, the anthology “” was published.

A Unique Style Emerges

, and this renders many of the region’s Black people “,” meaning they stick out in primarily White spaces.

Many Affrilachian poems explore this dynamic, along with the tension of participating in activities, such as hunting, that are stereotyped as being of interest only to White Americans. , family, and the Appalachian landscape are also central themes of the work.

Affrilachian poet Chanda Feldman’s poem touches on all of these elements.

Her poem shifts from the speaker hunting for rabbits with their father to the hunt as a larger metaphor for being Black in Appalachia—and thus seen as both predator and prey:

He told me
of my great uncle who, Depression era,
loaned white townspeople venison
and preserves. Later stood off
the same ones with a gun
when they wanted his property.

An Affrilachian Future

We reached out to Walker and asked him to reflect on the term, 30 years after he coined it.

Walker wrote back that it created a “solid foundation” that “encouraged a more diverse view of the region and its history” while increasing “opportunities for others to carve out their own space”—including other poets, musicians, and visual artists of color throughout the region.

In her book , journalist and academic Melissa Harris-Perry writes, “Citizens want and need more than a fair distribution of resources: they also desire meaningful recognition of their humanity and uniqueness.”

Affrilachian artistry and identity allows Appalachia to be fully seen as the diverse and culturally rich region that it is, bringing to the forefront those who have historically been pushed to the margins, out of mind and out of sight.

This article was originally published by . It has been published here with permission.

Amy M. Alvarez has been awarded fellowships from CantoMundo, VONA, Macondo, VCCA, and Furious Flower Poetry Center. Her poetry has appeared in nationally and internationally recognized literary journals including Crazyhorse, The Missouri Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, PRISM international, Rattle, and Sugar House Review. Her work has also been anthologized in literary anthologies and textbooks.

Jameka Hartley earned her Ph.D. from the University of Alabama. She is a Black feminist scholar with a background as an applied researcher. She teaches and writes about issues of motherhood, popular cultural representations of Black women, child to adult outcomes and stigma, focusing primarily on those raised in a mother-led home.