African American Miners and Migrants

by Wagner, Thomas E.; Obermiller, Phillip J.; Turner, William H. (CON)

• ISBN13: 9780252071645
• ISBN10: 0252071646
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-01-01
• Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr

Summary

Thomas E. Wagner and Phillip J. Obermiller's African American Miners and Migrants documents the lives of Eastern Kentucky Social Club (EKSC) members, a group of black Appalachians who left the eastern Kentucky coalfields and their coal company hometowns in Harlan County. Bound together by segregation, the inherent dangers of mining, and coal company paternalism, it might seem that black miners and mountaineers would be eager to forget their past. Instead, members of the EKSC have chosen to celebrate their Harlan County roots. African American Miners and Migrants uses historical and archival research and extensive personal interviews to explore their reasons and the ties that still bind them to eastern Kentucky. The book also examines life in the model coal towns of Benham and Lynch in the context of Progressive Era policies, the practice of welfare capitalism, and the contemporary national trend of building corporate towns and planned communities.

Author Biography

Thomas E. Wagner is University Professor Emeritus of Planning and Urban Studies at the University of Cincinnati Phillip J. Obermiller is a visiting scholar at the University of Cincinnati's School of Planning and a Center Fellow at the University of Kentucky's Appalachian Center

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
"Coming Up on the Rough Side of the Mountain": African Americans and Coal Camps in Appalachia	p. 5
"Life for Me Ain't Been No Crystal Stair": African Americans in Coal Towns	p. 17
"I Don't Know Where To, but We're Moving": African American Survival Strategies in Coal Towns	p. 35
"Sing a Song of 'Welfare'": Corporate Communities and Welfare Capitalism in Southeastern Kentucky	p. 52
"Living Tolerably Well Together": Life in the Model Towns along Looney Creek	p. 68
"What Kept You Standing, Why Didn't You Fall?": African Americans in Benham and Lynch	p. 91
"One Close Community": The Eastern Kentucky Social Club	p. 100
"They Love Coming Home": Appalachian Ties That Bind	p. 111
Afterword: Values, Spoken and Unspoken	p. 121
Notes	p. 131
Bibliography	p. 143
Index	p. 155
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