100 Days in Appalachia

Hillbilly Horror: Reckoning With a Genre 15 Years After ‘Wrong Turn’

“You’re not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling? And that accent you’ve tried so desperately to shed: pure West Virginia. What is your father, dear? Is he a coal ...
100 Days in Appalachia

Reporting Locally on Domestic Extremism? Here’s How to Not Platform Their Violence, A Case Study

It’s easy to find examples of how not to cover extremist violence and groups in American news coverage. On the national level, everyone from the New York Times to Fox News consistently platform white ...
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

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

In West Virginia’s ‘Poultry Capital,’ Immigrant Workers Struggle to Find the Help and Support They Need

This story was originally published by Mountain State Spotlight. Get stories like this delivered to your email inbox once a week; sign up for the free newsletter at ...
100 Days in Appalachia

Ready for a Road Trip? A Guide to the Sights & Bites of Central, Southern Appalachia

This summer, our Pittsburgh family took a long-awaited bucket list road trip through Appalachia. We had recently spent 18 months driving the Pan American highway, and while it was an epic journey, the ...
100 Days in Appalachia

Holler, Y’all and Appalachian Drawls: My Childhood of Code Switching in Appalachia

When I was in elementary school, a teacher told me that I needed to speak “properly.” She said my twang made me sound unintelligent. When I began serving on a state leadership board for high school ...
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

Documenting the Appalachian Intifada: A Review of ‘So Much to be Angry About’

Liberation movements around the world and throughout history have always created our own media: to tell our own stories, to teach our own people and to strengthen our movements and organizations. In ...
100 Days in Appalachia

Tyler Childers’ Appalachia: How the Country Singer Challenges our Relationships with Addiction and Religion

The first time I heard Tyler Childers’ voice I was riding in the passenger seat of a 15-year-old car late at night through the back roads of West Virginia. It was 2019, and I was 17 years old. And ...
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

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 ...