Exploring “The United States of Appalachia”
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 01.26.06 | 1:34 PM ET
World Hum contributor Jeff Biggers (Family Traveling, Italy’s Dark Heart and Europe from the Passenger Side) has written a new book that challenges stereotypes about America’s Southern mountains. It’s called The United States of Appalachia: How Southern Mountaineers Brought Independence, Culture and Enlightenment to America
Writes Margaret Regan:
More than 20 years ago, Jeff Biggers was hitchhiking through Appalachia.
He wasn’t an author yet; just 19, he was a fresh college dropout, traveling around the country, working on farms here and there. On one ride, he thought he was being funny when he joked to the driver about the dangers of hitchhiking in hillbilly country. The driver pulled over and slammed on the brakes.
“Get out,” he said.
Biggers apologized, explaining he had spent his early childhood in the hill country of Southern Illinois, before moving on to Tucson.
“I’m a hillbilly, too,” he added.
“We don’t use that word anymore,” the man replied. But he offered to take Biggers to the Appalachian South Folklife Center in West Virginia so the young man could learn the truth about mountain culture. There, Biggers met the center’s founder, poet and activist Don West, who told him, “You can’t understand America until you understand Appalachia.”
That was the beginning of Biggers’ decades-long quest to learn everything he could about life in the mountains.
In the book, Biggers explores the region’s many contributions to national life, including the history of labor struggles, civil rights efforts and environmentalism. And that’s just the beginning.
More about Biggers and the book is available at JeffBiggers.com.
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Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
Gary Potter 01.27.06 | 4:31 PM ET
so….the ‘H’ word is out. What’s PC? Appalachian American?
Jim 01.28.06 | 9:05 PM ET
Ha! That just might catch on…