Color, Class & Coal: Spoken Narratives on Education, Work and Community Life in Mount Hope, West Virginia, A Child & Family Studies Colloquium at the University of TN/Knoxville, Student Union Rm 169, 3:00 – 4:30 p.m.

Gains and losses are substantial in stories of Mount Hope, West Virginia’s 1956 consolidation of black and white schools. Lifelong relationships are forged among students across color lines, just as their fathers formed bonds among themselves as European immigrants, African Americans and native whites deep in underground mines. Yet hidden truths prevail in this layered story of race and class in a West Virginia coal town in the 1950s-’70s, recounted by alumni 50 years later in an exercise of truth and reconciliation. Hear recorded voices from Michael and Carrie Kline’s Talking Across the Lines podcast recalling school integration, football, cheerleading, and the ongoing presence of coal mining, amplified by the ethnographers’ reflections and punctuated by live Appalachian music. Color, Class and Coal Event Flyer