Extractable Coal News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

keep losing our connection to the places we come from. i am headed to central appalachia, a place many folks don't realize black folk still live, to hunt, eat, farm, and harmonize on the harmonica with the folks that fight to keep this place known as one of the homes of black folks. this is black appalachia. >> yeah. nice. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> when i say appalachia, you probably picture something like this, or this. harmful stereotypes of poor white folks. we will have to take those on another day. what you probably do not picture is this. a history of black folks here runs as deep as ...

Narrative that we often hear in the media. black appalachian's came here over generations, dating back to the conquistadors. they worked the coal mines and fought for labor rights alongside white appalachians. they won. they farm and hunted and all things considered, black folks found a pretty decent life. we know how capitalism works though. with the discovery of extractable coal, many mines shut down and people of all colors flowed out of the region. since 1950, west virginia lost nearly half of its black population. in some ways, the culture they created is barely hanging on. the first stop...