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Appalachia

How Appalachian Towns Are Learning To Help Each Other After Floods

March 15, 2025 Katie Myers, Next City. , , , ,
When the rivers and creeks running through eastern Kentucky jumped their banks and flooded a wide swath of the region for the second time in as many years, Cara Ellis set to work. One week later, she’s hardly let up. Ellis has spent countless hours helping friends in her hometown of Pikeville evacuate and delivering supplies to people who have lost their homes. “I’ve been here, there, everywhere in the county,” she said. “It’s overwhelming. There’s been a lot of devastation.” Ellis spoke during a brief moment of rest in the chaos. Her home was spared when storms brought torrential rain to central Appalachia during the weekend of February 15.

Despised: The Poor white Trash Manifesto, Part VI

January 27, 2025 Danny Shaw, Popular Resistance. , , , , ,
Professor Chenshaw: if our ideological and class enemies so consistently elevate you, Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, what does that say about your work? Why do they pay you to examine every atomized niche of poverty in the United States but to ignore the biggest financial famine? You are fascinated by the pathologies but are too good to descend to talk to the pathologized. Every portrait you paint of poverty in America focuses on “black trans women” and other subsets to the detriment of us all. The only way black trans women can rise up is if we all rise up.

Despised: The Poor white Trash Manifesto, Part V

January 20, 2025 Danny Shaw, Popular Resistance. , , , , ,
The petit-bourgeois whites are a non-thinking tail to the kite of the dominant wing of capitalism. Appearance is everything; dialectics is a cross to the liberal vampire.  It is not uncommon that they recruit, artificially elevate and reward “diverse” members of the oppressed class who do their bidding. There are such examples which Fox News unabashedly refers to as “diversity hires.” On our side of the class barricades, we should be careful of those possessing the appearance of militancy but not critically grasping the essence of Marxism. Independent thinkers are a problem for the PMC.

Despised: The Poor white Trash Manifesto, Part IV

January 14, 2025 Danny Shaw, Popular Resistance. , , , , ,
The poor boy didn’t forget where he came; He never knew to begin with. Vast structures of violence and poverty have our mothers, sisters and daughters trapped in a vortex of abuse and low self-esteem. We are not junkies, winos or bums; We are fighters and survivors. Vance is all image, no heart. Vance is all Hollywood, no Middletown. Vance is venture capital, not steel. The GOP brass used Vance’s story as their own antidote to the pandemic of early deaths ravaging our families.   Quite naturally, the rich would prop up a fake. Black America has their uncle Toms and Latinos have their vendepatrias; We too have our booklickers and asskissers.

The Arts Organization Helping Transform Appalachia’s Craft Economy

January 13, 2025 Kristi Eaton, Resilience. , , , ,
Makers United supports historically marginalized makers in the craft economy by removing the barriers to accessing business development resources and e-commerce opportunities they need to grow their small businesses. In 2023, that commitment led Nest to expand Makers United to Appalachia, starting with 54 counties in eastern Kentucky, where they identified not only the need for economic investment but recognized the potential for growth in the craft sector, especially in rural and digitally disconnected communities. As a result, the program delivers one-of-a-kind support by working with local and regional efforts to improve makers’ e-commerce readiness and enhance their business’ e-commerce performance to help folk artists market and distribute their work.

Despised: The Poor White Trash Manifesto, Part III

January 6, 2025 Danny Shaw, Popular Resistance. , , , ,
“Despised: A Poor white Trash Manifesto” is a cry for help. We are not living well. The American dream that appears on your netflix and Hollywood movies is a brittle myth. We are so busy surviving the capitalist nightmare, most of us have never even had the opportunity to learn about your struggles in Nigeria, Bolivia or Indonesia. The earth’s radius along the equator is almost 4,000 miles but the longest mile is between our two ears. When we are in our heads, we are in a bad neighborhood. We a shortsighted breed, but now at least you know the perplexing origins of our myopia.

Despised: The Poor White Trash Manifesto, Part II

December 30, 2024 Danny Shaw, Popular Resistance. , , , ,
Perched up in their Ivy League offices and downtown skyscrapers, the tenured professors and well-paid journalists have written a great deal about us. When have we got a day off from work and our survival routines to analyze their foreign attitudes and habits? Today, we get to have our say. It is our lived experience in the trenches versus your pontificating. You are not us and we are not you. Do you really think you would last a round with us in the real world? The petit bourgeois white has found their place at the capitalist trough; the poor white, desperate for breathing room, searches for an opening. 

Why All Hurricanes Should Be Named ‘Jim’

October 20, 2024 Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright, Black Agenda Report. , , , , , , , , , ,
The devastation effectuated by Hurricane Helene represents yet another elucidation of a quintessential climate crisis that is right here and right now. It demonstrates that climate change is not a conclusion that awaits us, but a set of present day precarities taking and altering lives right now. According to initial assessments, Helene could cost U.S. taxpayers upwards of $175 billion , and of course, there is no way to quantify the estimated 230 lives that were taken, thus far, with the death toll expected to rise. Meanwhile, Hurricane Milton, which made landfall in Florida as a Category 3 storm, continued this season of carnage and calamity with a death toll of approximately 20 people and an estimated $50 billion in damages.

We In Appalachia Are Done With Being A Sacrifice Zone

September 9, 2022 Crystal Mello, Equation Campaign. , , , ,
Appalachia won’t be thrown under the bus in a side deal to climate legislation. That’s why we’re going to the capital this week, for the “Appalachian Resistance Comes to DC“ rally, on September 8. Our message: we’re done with being a sacrifice zone. If you care about climate, you’ve got to care about us too. It’s the right thing to do. And it’s also the only way we can get better climate policies going forward. The wheelers and dealers who negotiated the Inflation Reduction Act need to work with those of us on the ground who lead this fight, rather than against us. The side deal proposed by Senator Joe Manchin includes the undermining of laws that protect us from the fossil fuel industry.

This Appalachian Town Uses Co-ops To Build New Communities

June 30, 2022 Jeffrey Howard, Resilience. , , ,
The birthplace of bluegrass and home to the oldest mountain range east of the Mississippi River, Southern Appalachia is not only fertile soil for the sharing economy, but a co-op-driven movement known as the solidarity economy. Aimed at generating locally rooted wealth and ensuring its equitable distribution, the solidarity economy is fiercely democratic. For Sara Chester, co-executive director and founder of The Industrial Commons (TIC), a 501(c)3 organization that fosters employee ownership, in a solidarity economy “workers are appreciated not just for their labor but their ideas, insights, and innovations. Workers are not just a piece of the business, they are the reason the business exists.” Sometimes referred to as the co-op model, this approach is about creating prosperous and resilient communities by emphasizing worker agency and ownership, environmental sustainability, and the value of place.

Meet The Appalachian Women Facing Down The Mountain Valley Pipeline

June 27, 2022 Ben Bolling, In These Times. , , ,
I have met so many people through this fight,” says Nancy Bouldin of Monroe County, West Virginia. “If you look at any benefits of all this, it’s the people and the connections that have been made.” When Bouldin says, “all this,” she refers to the years-long battle communities across West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina have waged against the Mountain Valley Pipeline and its proposed Southgate extension. When Bouldin and fellow organizers Lynda Majors and Donna Pitt met for a discussion via Zoom in March of 2022, the MVP’s prospects seemed dim. Originally priced at $3.7 billion, the MVP’s costs have ballooned to over $6.2 billion, the project is over three years behind schedule and has faced millions of dollars in fines for violations of clean water protections. A number of recent legal setbacks

Walk For Appalachia’s Future Connects Struggles In The Region

June 6, 2022 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , ,
Activists just completed the "Walk for Appalachia's Future" through West Virginia, North Carolina and Virginia to highlight the impacts of fossil fuel extraction on communities and the land. At each stop, they held events with local activists to learn about their struggles and make broader connections. The Appalachian region is a sacrifice zone - rich in mineral wealth that is extracted by large corporations without benefit to the people. West Virginia is the fifth poorest state in the US with low education attainment and high rates of physical and mental diseases. Clearing the FOG speaks with two organizers of the walk, Maury Johnson and Melinda Tuhus, about the conditions that led to organizing the walk and what they have learned along the way as well as the people's vision for the region.

Appalachia Does Not Need More Fossil Fuel Greed

June 3, 2022 Emily Satterwhite, DeSmog. , , , ,
A fossil fuel executive recently told Fortune, “Appalachia is the elephant in the room,” referring to the claim that demand for natural gas is rising, while supply in Appalachia and the United States is falling. Such corporate executives would like to see expansion of production in order to bail out their dying industry. And Fortune’s interviewee is right. Appalachia is the elephant in the room. We need to talk more about the role of Appalachia in the country’s energy system. But what he gets wrong is that the future does not entail further dependence on fossil fuels. The future that Appalachia can and will lead is in renewable energy. For over a century, this region has powered the country’s growth with our natural resources, including coal, gas, and oil.

In Appalachia, The Mine Cleanup System Has Collapsed

March 28, 2022 Dan Radmacher, In These Times. , , , ,
The growing movement for regeneration offers a much needed reframe of how to fully show up in our humanity at this critical moment in our planet’s history. We need to move beyond incremental change and a narrowed fixation on reducing our carbon footprint. We cannot treat social injustices and ecological crises as separate, unrelated phenomena. Nor can we surrender to despair and distraction, or waste time on projects that make us feel good but lack deeper impact. The task at hand—our great calling—is to simultaneously regenerate our ecosystems AND integrate the design of new social and economic systems that can truly center and support life. At a foundational level, this ambitious project of regeneration requires us to RESIST or stop destruction, repair harm, and reimagine our world, our communities, and the systems upon which we depend.

Together, We Can Choose A Different Future For Appalachian Communities

June 7, 2021 Joanne Kilgour, Pennsylvania Capital Star. , , ,
Over the course of my career, I have been humbled by what the people in the Ohio River Valley have given to me. I recall those community members who kindly served me coffee made with bottled water because their wells had been compromised by the then-new fracking industry; gifts of home-grown fruit that ripened despite the adjacent coal ash disposal area blowing a thick dust over all adjoining properties; and donuts shared with retired mine workers as we stood in the cold demanding the benefits they earned putting their bodies on the line to line the pockets of their corporate bosses. What I know to be true about the region is that the depth of character, work ethic, and commitment to community here is unparalleled, and it is time to give back to a region that has given us all so much.
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