100 Days in Appalachia

What is the New Apostolic Reformation? How a Religio-Political Movement is Affecting U.S. and Appalachian Politics

Apostles and prophets. Spiritual warfare. Dominionism and the New Apostolic Reformation. You might come across these terms if you follow politics these days. Here’s some context and clarity about the ...
100 Days in Appalachia

Five Years After It Became a National Park, There’s a Growing Divide In West Virginia’s New River Gorge

The New River Gorge is a jagged area in the middle of Southern West Virginia’s coalfields. Shaped by one of the oldest rivers in the world, whitewater rapids roll under its high petrified sandstone ...
100 Days in Appalachia

‘We Know What It’s Like To Be Exploited’: Tucker County, W.Va., Grapples With Future-Defining AI-Infrastructure Proposal

To fully appreciate the beauty of Tucker County, you must visit. Nestled at 3,500 feet in the gorgeous Allegheny Mountains along the Blackwater River, the town of Davis is at the highest elevation of ...
100 Days in Appalachia

The Green Smelter: Century Aluminum Promises Kentucky’s Next Big Economic Boost, But with Some Risk

In the 1980s, in the United States, coal and aluminum production were each thriving industries. The production of primary aluminum depended, at that time, on plentiful, inexpensive coal – and the rich ...
100 Days in Appalachia

As COVID-19 Damages Black Appalachian Communities, This Mother, Daughter Team Are Working to Save an Unexpected Casualty: Black History

Dr. Norma Thomas carries a microphone as she walks the streets of Uniontown, Pennsylvania’s East End. This is the “before times,” before COVID-19, and as Thomas recounts the local history of the East ...
100 Days in Appalachia

In West Virginia’s Southern Coalfields, a Grassroots ‘Jubilee’

On a late spring day in 2022, Rev. Brad Davis was riding along the twisting roads of McDowell County, West Virginia. Davis was soon to start his current job pastoring five United Methodist churches ...
100 Days in Appalachia

Big Tech Comes to Tucker County, WV

Pamela Moe was reading the paper in late March when she spotted a public notice from a company she’d never heard of. Fundamental Data, a Virginia-based company, had applied for a permit from West ...
100 Days in Appalachia

The first time I went to Muskingum Island was in 2024, before the work began.

Listen to the sounds of the island. On an unusually cool and dry morning in late July, I met Victor Elam, the Refuge Manager of the Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge, at a boat launch just ...
100 Days in Appalachia

The Number of White Nationalist Groups in Appalachia Is Rising — and the Surge Could Have Implications for Democracy

The number of white nationalist groups operating in Appalachia has increased, according to a recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The rise coincides with a national surge of far-right, ...
100 Days in Appalachia

Are Data Centers the Next Frontier of Extraction in West Virginia?

Mingo County, West Virginia, was once thriving, but the coal industry’s decline left it one of the poorest counties in the US. Now, several data centers could be built in the region. Are data centers ...
100 Days in Appalachia

‘A Crisis of Truth:’ Trauma, Disinformation and the New Apostolic Reformation’s Effect on Our Politics

On a sunny October Saturday three weeks before the election, about 100,000 Christians gathered on the National Mall in Washington D.C. to fast, pray, and atone for sin. Although the event, dubbed “A ...
100 Days in Appalachia

For My Indian-American family, West Virginia Will Always Be Home

“West Virginia” is never what people are looking for when they ask where my family is from. The first week of January, my dad and I drove five hours from our house in North Carolina to visit his ...