Race and Racism in Appalachia

There are five primary myths or misconception regarding Appalachia. According to these myths Appalachia is almost completely poor, rural, white, mountainous, and pre-modern. Of these, one of the most prevalent ideas is the homogeneity of the race make-up within Appalachia. On top of the belief that the region, spanning parts of 13 U.S. states, is distinctly white is the notion that they are historically innocent when it comes to racism. Upon closer examination, one can easily find that this not so white region actually has a spotty history when it comes to race relations.

The origin of the ever apparent whiteness within Appalachian can possibly be attributed to outside journalists and scholars who perhaps visited the region for a brief amount of time and then reported back to their superiors. In doing so, generalizations were published and consumed by average Americans, planting the seeds of the idea. One journalist, writing about the northern Georgia mountains in 1879, proclaimed “nowhere will be found purer Anglo-Saxon blood.” One ethnogeographer described the mountain populous of Kentucky as having successfully kept foreign elements at bay in 1901 while, “still more effectively…excluded the negroes. This region is as free from them as Northern Vermont.” These proclamations are obviously false as slavery existed in every Appalachian county in 1860 and by the end of the century freedmen and women totaled over 274,000 of the region’s total population. Additionally, Audrey Horning, an archaeologist studying migration, concluded “The southern upland regions attracted settlers not only from the British borderlands…but from all over North American colonial regions as well as from France, and the Palatinate and West Africa, while later drawing from eastern and southern Europe.”

Secondly, the misconception that Appalachian residents were innocent when it came to race relations is likely paired to the similarly inaccurate idea that they were secluded from the Civil War. As a perceived all white territory, how could they show racist tendencies towards blacks? As noted before slavery existed all across Appalachia, therefore the racist tendencies that came along with slavery were there too. More than ten counties lost their entire black populations between 1880 and 1900 due to economic opportunity elsewhere as well as, and more relevant to this discussion, scare tactics. It was also understood, while less documented, that racism occurred in Appalachia. According to one North Carolina highlander, the reason there were no blacks residing in the Rock Creek section of Mitchell County was that “color people have a well-founded belief that if they venture up there they might not come back alive.”

Sources:

Catte, Elizabeth. “The Mythical Whiteness of Trump Country.” Boston Review, 7 Nov. 2017, bostonreview.net/race-politics/elizabeth-catte-mythical-whiteness-trump-country.

Inscoe, John. “Race and Racism in Nineteenth-Century Southern Appalachia: Myths, Realities, and Ambiguities.” Social Context Past and Present, 5th ed., 2007, pp. 56–70.

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