A Lucky Appalachian
by Brent Kennedy
| Reprinted from Perspectives from the Coalfields The Coalfield Progress Norton, Virginia Tuesday, December 9, 2003 |
However, my beloved Appalachia has been shortchanged on its rich heritage. Outsiders, and to some degree insiders, have essentially “whitewashed” our origins. When I was a kid in the 1950s and 1960s, being Scots-Irish or English was the only game in town. We were told that we were lowland Scots who took to the mountains, refused to become educated and pretty much intermarried amongst ourselves. Even the most dark complexioned among us was invariably “northern European”. While we certainly possess a high degree of northern European blood, Native Americans, Melungeons, Africans, southern and eastern Europeans and Asians all figure into the history of the Appalachians. But back then it was a rare occasion when someone would be brave enough to claim an ancestry from one of these categories. I still vividly recall when beloved J.J. Kelly football coach and history teacher, W.G. Bays, talked about the courage of Ethiopian leader Haile Selassie against the overwhelming Italian Fascist forces during World War II and, furthermore, how “dark people” as often as not didn’t get their due respect from historians. The Ethiopians, he explained, fought against the well-armed Italians with knives and sticks and stones, and were mercilessly slaughtered by the land-grabbing Fascists. He then looked our eighth-grade class in the eyes and proudly proclaimed his own Native American roots, another people who fought bravely with whatever weapons they could muster. That was probably the first time I ever heard a respected member of the community admitting a mixed background with pride and, as a consequence, I have never forgotten W.G. Bays. That learning experience also fueled a personal passion to better know my own roots. While my family, too, was “Scots-Irish” it didn’t take a genius to know our heritage had to be a bit more complicated than the purely Emerald Isle imagery that the name Kennedy conjured up. Simply crossing the threshold of my front door each day after school was proof of that. My Mother and my brother looked as if they had stepped out of Lawrence of Arabia, and other cousins and relatives added to the smorgasbord of non-Anglo faces. Later in life, a smattering of Mediterranean genetic diseases and DNA testing would lead me to discover my own genetic ties to Native Americans (through three of my four grandparents), northern India, Eastern Europe, the British Isles, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East. A Mitochondrial DNA connection on my Mother’s side finds its vast preponderance of exact matches not in England or Ireland or Wales, but in Syria, Yemen, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Lebanon, and Palestine. Other “English” ancestors turned out to have manufactured their surnames to hide Italian and Greek and French origins. Just because New World settlers set sail from England did not mean that they were ethnic English. Maybe there was a reason some of my Wise County ancestors placed Stars of David on their tombstones and maybe it wasn’t a “paper error” that two of my Mom’s (and my) direct eighteenth-century ancestors were classified as “taxable mulattos” in York County, Virginia. |
Twenty years ago, such ethnic influences as discussed above were all too often seen as somehow “un-American.” To admit being part Native American, or Jewish, or Turkish or Portuguese would, in the minds of some, cast a dispersion on one’s patriotism. In a strange and illogical twisting of thought, genetics went hand in hand with being an American, and even being an Appalachian. If you didn’t hail 100% from the British Isles you weren’t a “real” Appalachian, no matter how long your family had been here. Never mind that my ancestors, whoever and whatever they were, were among the first to enter these mountains, build cabins, plow the land, fight the British at Kings Mountain, and even distill a little moonshine in this hollow or on that ridge. No, if they weren’t “pure” Scots-Irish in the old way of thinking then they didn’t quite count. Well, I’m happy to say, things have changed and today they – and we - do count. Our actions and attitudes and the way we live our lives is what really matters when it comes to evaluating our worth. If tomorrow morning you discover that your great-great grandfather had a little Portuguese, or Powhatan Indian, or Turkish or sub-Saharan African in him, would you take down his portrait from the mantle? I would hope not because he’s still your great-great grandfather. Whatever I may discover regarding my family’s ethnic origins, or whatever you may discover about yours, will not change one iota who and what they were and the pride we can take in what they accomplished. I like to remind myself that if I remove any single ancestor from my lineage – any single ancestor – then I am not here. That self-serving rationale alone makes me appreciative of all who came before me. So what’s the point? The point is that we are all part of one big human family, with culture, politics, and religion – NOT race or ethnicity – defining and unfortunately dividing us. And that racially and ethnically, no one really knows who they are unless they can literally see back to the beginning of time. Like it or not, we are all kin and, frankly, I like it. We in the Appalachians could hold hands with our cousins and literally form a chain of kinship that would extend through every nation on earth. That’s how diverse we are. My hope is that scholars will revisit the history of this region with an understanding that this wonderful but overlooked diversity has had a major, positive impact on the development of our Nation: just as important as the millions of settlers who wagoned westward through the Cumberland Gap. Recognizing this truth will not only give us a little more pride in who we are as a people, but it might just help us better understand the rest of the world. And what a marvelous opportunity for us in Appalachia to be at the forefront in teaching our Nation the real meaning of diversity. In the meantime, I will continue to feel a surge of adrenalin when hearing our National Anthem or Rocky Top, or when watching the Tennessee Volunteers charge through the Big Orange T. I’ll take pride in UVaWise’s steady rise in the academic rankings and in the expert renditions of our mountain music by folks like Bill and Nancy Jones. And I’ll enjoy the everyday images of Appalachian life, be it local community festivals, exquisite fall foliage, or coal trucks rumbling by my Dad’s service station. For I am a lucky man – I am an Appalachian. Brent Kennedy is President of the Wellmont Foundation in Kingsport, Tennessee. He was born in Norton and grew up in Wise. |
