The View From Appalachia: The Pull To Get Out And Come Back Home

This story is part of "The View From," an election-year project focused on how voters' needs of government are shaped by where they live. The series started in Illinois and this week, NPR took a road trip across three Appalachian states.

Letcher County, Ky., is shaped by generations of migration — not always voluntary. There is an almost tidal pull drawing young people out, in search of jobs. But there is also a new generation of return migrants, those eager to create economic reasons to come home. Read more…

After Coal, a Small Kentucky Town Builds a Healthier, More Creative Economy

A complex network of local organizations helps neighbors support one another as they rebound from a dying industry.

Peter Slavin posted Jun 06, 2017

Nearly 50 years ago, on a presidential campaign swing through eastern Kentucky, Sen. Robert Kennedy promised to help a disabled coal miner build a community center in the tiny mountain town of Hemphill to give idle youth and others a place for recreation and meetings.

James Johnson used the brick-making machine and VISTA workers that Kennedy supplied to create community space and built a park and area for horseback riding.

Years later Johnson developed black lung disease and couldn’t keep the center going. After he died, his widow, Mabel, helped establish a new Hemphill Community Center in this mountainous region in the heart of Appalachia. Read more…

Building Democracy in 'Trump Country'

Ben Fink works at Kentucky's Appalshop, a grass-roots multimedia arts center. He writes about how he and his community have been working with each other in the aftermath of the presidential election.

BY BEN FINK | MARCH 10, 2017

A lot of people don’t believe me when I tell them Letcher County, Kentucky, is one of the most open-minded places I’ve ever lived.
I moved here a year ago. I’ve spent most of my life in cities and suburbs, and I arrived with all the assumptions you can imagine about Central Appalachia and the people who live here.

I might not have believed it either, before I moved here a year ago. I’ve spent most of my life in cities and suburbs, and I arrived with all the assumptions you can imagine about Central Appalachia and the people who live here. Read more…