Mountain Talk Monday Every Tuesday!

In this episode we’re learning about the Artists Collaborative Theater in Elkhorn City, KY. We were joined in the studio by some of the youth theater participants to learn more about the theater, their youth education programming, and their upcoming play "The Adventures of Peter Rabbit."

In this episode we’re celebrating Indigenous People’s Day. Many states across the nation celebrate Columbus Day, but a growing number have done away with a celebration of Columbus, and instead, celebrate Indigenous Histories and Presents each October. For this episode, we spoke with Bonnie Brown, coordinator of West Virginia University’s Native Studies Program. Brown talks about the legacy of genocide sparked by Columbus’s arrival in North America. Then, we spoke with Angela Arnett Garner, from the Legislative Committee of the Kentucky Native American Heritage Commission. Garner talks about her work organizing across the state encouraging towns and counties to celebrate Indigenous People’s Day. The image is a screenprint by Jesus Barraza of the Just Seeds Artist Cooperative.

In this episode we were joined in the studio by two Letcher County, KY Fire Department Chiefs. Sand Lick Fire Chief Mike Amburgey and Kings Creek Fire Chief Bill Meade spoke about the many public services that volunteer Fire Departments Provide in Letcher County, the funding crisis they are facing, and the unique importance that volunteer fire departments play rural communities.

1 in 5 veteran miners now has Black Lung, and yet the Black Lung Disability Fund is at risk of effectively disappearing. This week a group of retired miners, widows, lawyers and organizers traveled from Appalachia to Washington D.C. to lobby on Capitol Hill. In this episode of Mountain Talk we chat with some of them about their personal experiences with Black Lung Disease, and their work to try to save the Black Lung Trust Fund. We hear from retired miners Bethel Brock and Jimmy Moore, Patty Amburgey who lost her husband to Black Lung, and Appalachian Citizens' Law Center's Evan Smith.

In this episode, we bring you an interview with Kevin Rashid Johnson, who has been incarcerated since 1990 in prisons throughout the U.S., most recently in Southwest VA. Benny Becker spoke with Johnson by phone, about his own experiences on the inside, histories of organizing from within prison walls, and the national prison strike taking place right now. The strike, which runs from August 21st - September 9, 2018 has a list of demands, including that "All persons imprisoned in any place of detention under United States jurisdiction must be paid the prevailing wage in their state or territory for their labor." Currently, incarcerated folks are paid next to nothing for their work. So, on this Labor Day, we bring you voices from an ongoing labor struggle inside U.S. Prisons. Self portrait by Rashid Johnson from his website rashidmod.com

In this episode we’re honoring the history of the Battle of Blair Mountain which took place from August 25-Sept 2, 1921. The Battle of Blair Mountain was the largest labor uprising in United States history, and it took place in the context of the decade long WV Mine Wars. During that time miners and their families fought to bring a union, and through it, safer and more just working and living conditions to the Southern WV Coalfields. We'll talk with people involved in honoring this history today, through the WV Mine Wars Museum in Matewan, and through work to preserve the Blair Mountain Battlefield itself as a National Historic Site. We’ll also hear audio from the Appalshop Film: Nimrod Workman: To Fit My Own Category - Nimrod participated in the Battle of Blair Mountain and was a proud union miner.

In this episode we’re learning about a new App developed right here in Letcher County, KY that launches this week in conjunction with Jenkins Homecoming Days. The app, Jenkins: A City Built on Coal, is a virtually guided walking and driving tour. Users are guided on the tour by oral history recordings of nine local residents who share memories of 14 different locations throughout the town. We'll hear from Appalshop based Project Director Elizabeth Barret and Archivist Caroline Rubens, and excerpts from the interviews with nine past and present residents of Jenkins - recorded and edited by Benny Becker.

In this episode we bring you Nikki Giovanni’s keynote address to the 2018 Appalachian Writers Workshop. Nikki Giovanni is an award winning prolific poet, activist and educator. She was born in Knoxville in 1943, and raised in Cincinnati, OH. She now makes her home in Blacksburg, VA where she has taught at Virginia Tech since 1987. Each July writers gather in at the Hindman Settlement School for the Appalachian Writers Workshop. This year was the 41st annual workshop, and Giovanni delivered the keynote address.

In this episode we bring you an hour of history and poetry from the Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative (SAWC). Formed in 1974 out of a gathering at the Highlander Center, SAWC aims to support Appalachian writers in their efforts to take control of a regional identity, and to take action on issues impacting mountain land and people. Each year members of SAWC travel to Whitesburg from near and far, to read poems as a part of Appalshop’s annual Seedtime on the Cumberland Festival. We sat down with a handful of SAWC members at this year’s festival to learn more about their personal and collective writing histories, and to hear some great poems!

In this episode we'll hear about this summer's Appalachian Media Institute. This is a special AMI summer, because it’s the first in Appalshop’s history to be themed. To celebrate its 30th anniversary, AMI partnered up with another Appalshop program, All Access EKY, to bring a female/non-binary summer, focusing on the issues of reproductive health care and access to birth control in Eastern Kentucky. Seven talented interns have spent six-weeks studying documentaries, partaking in hands-on workshops, and researching women’s reproductive healthcare in preparation to make their own films. This mountain talk, produced by AMI peer trainer Hannah Adams, will include media created throughout this summer and past semesters of All Access, as well as interviews with the interns themselves.

In this episode we bring you an hour of interviews with wrestlers who will be competing in the Summer Bash on July 21st in Whitesburg, KY. WMMT's general manager Elizabeth Sanders guides us through this adventure through the drama and history of Appalachian Mountain Wrestling.

In this episode we’ll hear from two southern women using words to craft healing and comfort in the rural communities from which they come. First we’ll hear from Salaam Green, a writer and activist working with the Black Belt Citizens in Uniontown, AL to fight environmental, economic and racial injustice, and we’ll here about how Green uses writing to heal community members along the way. Then, we’ll hear from Ronni Lundy, an Appalachian writer and cook from Corbin, KY who talks about her book Vittles, and the people, landscape, foods, and stories that led her to create this homage to Appalachian food. While Green and Lundy work in communities that might look very different from the outside, and use writing towards different ends, their commitments to the rural landscapes, foodways, traditions, and health of their communities shows us just how much we have in common as rural people, across this country, and across this world.

This episode features interviews with Robertson Scholars who have worked in Whitesburg, KY over the years. The Robertson Scholars Leadership Program supports students at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill & Duke University in developing leadership skills and thriving during college. Since the early 2000's students from all over the country (and world!) have lived and worked in Whitesburg each summer. 2018 Scholar, Mikey Muller, interviewed past scholars about their experiences visiting Appalachia for the first time, and learning from our people, our cultures, and our work.

In this episode we bring you excerpts from the Firestarters: seven committed citizens who kicked off the National Rural Assembly in Durham, NC in May 2018 with personal stories about the work they do to address issues and build civic courage in rural America.

In this final Mountain Talk in our series celebrating LGBTQ History Month, we bring "Gay in the Eyes of God." A special production of Interfaith Voices, the leading religion news magazine on public radio. It explores the ways in which the major American religious traditions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) grapple with acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

From Catherine Moore we bring you a rebroadcast of Cedar Grove: a story about transition–bridging the past and the future. The hour-long radio documentary features stories from West Virginia’s history, the work of renowned novelist Mary Lee Settle, and the voices of people from her hometown in Kanawha County, WV.

In this episode (the third in our month long series celebrating LGBTQ History) we’ll be hearing excerpts from an ongoing oral history project called Country Queers. This ongoing multimedia oral history project has gathered stories from 60 rural and small town LGBTQ+ folks in 15 states. In this episode we'll hear excerpts from seven of those interviews. From MA to CO, TN to TX these excerpts show the wide range of identities and experiences held by country queers in the U.S.A.

In our second installment for June's LGBTQ+ History Month programming we bring you an interview with Kentucky author and activist Silas House. "Southernmost" released June 5, 2018 is House's sixth novel, and in this interview he reads  an excerpt of the book and talks about the central themes of parenthood, religion, and sexuality in the rural south which are threaded throughout.  He also talks about his writing process and inspiration, national misconceptions of working class and rural people, and the complexity of rural mountain communities' navigation of a changing political and social world.

This episode is the first in our month-long series celebrating national, regional, and local LGBTQ+ History Month, and we’re starting with national history by remembering Stonewall. The Stonewall Inn was a gay bar in New York City, where in June of 1969, after a commonly occuring police raid, the queer folks at the bar fought back. The riots were led by trans women of color including Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, and this historic event marks the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. In today’s show, we’ll hear two audio histories of Stonewall. The first from Making Contact produced in 2015, and the second from Outcasting, an LGBTQ youth podcast, which was produced in 2017.

In this episode we're learning about the Mountains of Music Homecoming series of concerts and other events held throughout Southwest Virginia each summer. Ted Olson, a music historian at East TN State U and MC of many past Mtns of Music concerts, sat down in the studio with myself and WMMT programmer Rich Kirby to talk about the history of the program, and to highlight this summer’s excellent schedule. Along the way we’ll hear tunes recorded live at past Mtns. of Music concerts!