Road trip day 5 - back to eastern Kentucky, part 1

Taking you back to eastern Kentucky and day 5 of the road trip.

After staying the night in West Virginia, I traveled to Whitesburg, Kentucky to meet with Nick Szuberla at Appalshop, just across the state line from Wallens Ridge in Virginia. Appalshop is a multimedia arts and education center started with War on Poverty money in the 1960s. The question then as now is how the arts can foster social and economic justice in a place whose economy has been dominated by coal.
The remoteness of Whitesburg belies its connection to globalization. The mechanization of the multinational coal industry created even greater unemployment in an already struggling region. With a prison located atop an old mountaintop coal removal site, we have one story of how a place reliant on extractive industries tries to retool its economy. With Appalshop, we have another story of how building cultural resources and capacities can be a source of resistance and a cultural economy that provides alternatives to the deadly paths to the mines, prison (as guard or guarded), and military.
I’m here to learn about the Thousand Kites project, which has become an important communication and cultural infrastructure linking imprisoned folks and their families and communities on the outside. Amelia Kirby and Nick started the project about 10 years ago soon after Red Onion and Wallens Ridge opened. Appalshop’s radio station broadcasts reach the prisons and they began hearing stories about prisoner abuses and decided to do a project on the prison system. Over the years they (and countless other folks) have created several projects, including a film, Up the Ridge, a weekly radio broadcast, Holler to the Hood, and the yearly Calls from Home radio program, which is syndicated to over 200 radio stations across the country. Ms. K in Richmond, VA, whom I interviewed when I first started the trip, is on the air every week and uses the broadcasts as a powerful mobilizing platform. Likewise, the radio and documenting personal narrative has also been used to bring prisoners back to the states where they were convicted. Wallens Ridge is among the prisons that contracts with places outside Virginia, such as New Mexico, DC and the Virgin Islands to rent space for prisoners.