16th Union, "Home to the Hills: Melungeon Heritage and Appalachian Communities" June 28-30

[Melungeon Heritage Association]

Preregistration is not required and onsite registration is $10 for the conference itself, with a free Friday afternoon preconference from 1 to 5 pm.  The Friday keynote address will be at 7 pm.  Saturday presentations will be from 9 am to 4 pm.  Other evening and Thursday event details are being finalized. Speaker order will be as follows:

Friday:

1 pm Johnnie Rhea, 2 pm Phyllis Morefield, 3 pm Paul Johnson, 4 pm Phyllis Starnes, 7 pm Arwin Smallwood

Saturday:

9 am Terry Mullins, 10 am Wayne Winkler, 11 am Lisa Alther, 1 pm Sharon Ewing, 2 pm Kathy Lyday-Lee, 3 pm Julie Williams Dixon

 

For further information write to Jim Morefield, Registrar or K. Paul Johnson, Corresponding Secretary.

 

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Registration16thUnion.doc

16^th Union: A Melungeon Gathering

Home to the Hills

Melungeon myth and reality and Southwest Virginia communities will be themes of the major presenters who have agreed to appear at the 16^th Melungeon Union in Big Stone Gap.  On the evening of June 29th,

Dr. Arwin Smallwood of the University of Memphis will open the proceedings with a discussion of his book Bertie County: An Eastern Carolina History, and the recent discovery which seems to indicate that the Lost Colonists of Roanoke Island fled to Bertie County

On Saturday, June 30^th, the conference speakers will include:

Lisa Alther, discussing and reading from her new novel, Washed in the Blood, a multigenerational exploration of Melungeon roots set mainly in fictional Couchtown, Virginia, and Blood Feud, her new history of the Hatfield-McCoy feudists

Sharon Ewing, Park Manager of the Southwest Virginia Historical Museum and State Park, discussing her books on Southwest Virginia-- including a history of Big Stone Gap

Dr. Kathy Lyday-Lee of Elon University, examining the ways that current images of Melungeons in popular culture continue to promote misunderstanding and stereotypes

Dr. Terry Mullins of Concord University, discussing his histories of Southwest Virginia communities and recent children’s book Melungeons Out of the Dungeon

Wayne Winkler, placing several frequently-cited sources on Melungeons in historical context, and challenging the validity of the assumptions these sources promote

Filmmaker Julie Williams Dixon, a Wise County native, showing and commenting on selected outtakes from her acclaimed 2007 documentary film Melungeon Voices

Friday workshops and chat are being developed, and will include Johnnie Gibson Rhea sharing memories of Newman’s Ridge, Phyllis Morefield giving an introduction to online genealogy, Phyllis Starnes explaining DNA testing for beginners, and K. Paul Johnson discussing evidence connecting Melungeons and North Carolina's Pell Mellers.

Lodging options are listed in the comments to this post.

Registration16thUnion.doc

[Lynda Logan]

Hi How much is it for all 3 days???  And where are the places to stay??  Thanks, Lynda Logan

[Melungeon Heritage Association]

Hi Lynda, $10 is the only registration fee from MHA.  Friday morning is the annual members meeting, free to members; Friday afternoon is a preconference series of workshops, chats, lectures, free and open to the public.  Registration fee covers the Friday evening keynote, reception, and a full day of Saturday presentations.  There are quite a few places to stay in Wise County, all listed in this chamber of commerce site. As for adjacent county options, will post that soon after consulting with the Museum further.  Optional local tourist activities on Thursday would have a separate modest cost payable not to MHA but the Museum-- but availability will depend on member interest. 

Kingsport is the closest large city and has several options, but the 38 mile drive can take an hour.  Between Kingsport and Wise County is Scott County, which has some charming places to stay.  Watch for additional possibilities.

[Lynda Logan]

Thank you... I do plan on being there - all 3 days!!!!

[Melungeon Heritage Association]

Every Melungeon Union combines an extended family reunion with a scholarly conference featuring authors and researchers sharing the latest perspectives on our heritage.  All presenters come at their own expense, as volunteers receiving no compensation or travel costs, as do MHA members who organize and direct the conference.  We travel considerable distances to attend this annual event, to learn and celebrate this heritage we share and treasure.

New this year at 16^th Union was a preconference free and open to the public on Friday, June 29^th called “Discover Your Melungeon Heritage” and featuring Johnnie Gibson Rhea, Phyllis Morefield, Phyllis Starnes, and me (KPJ).  The Museum Parlor in which we met had 50 seats, and 10 more had to be brought in to handle the crowd.  This while some were outside at the book table and registration tent, so overall Friday attendance was much higher than the 40 or so typical of recent years.  However, the most extreme weather in a long time caused attendance to decline Saturday rather than increase as in past experience, as the event had been advertised as occurring outdoors on the lawn, and temperatures were well over 100 in Wise County by afternoon.  45 or so conferees fit comfortably indoors in the air conditioning and enjoyed some very colorful stories about Appalachian communities – true and fictional—throughout the Saturday presentations.  And some continued to be working outdoors even in the grueling heat Saturday, most notably MHA President S.J. Arthur. I will write individual appreciations of our Friday evening keynote speaker and Saturday presenters throughout the week, but want to begin by thanking my colleagues in the preconference.

No one represents Melungeon heritage in quite the way that Johnnie Gibson Rhea does, since she is a native Virginian who has spent almost all her life in Tennessee and is known and loved by Melungeons in both states.  Johnnie welcoming the conferees with stories of her family heritage on Newman’s Ridge, as a Gibson, Collins, and Goins descendant, set the tone for an informal and fun afternoon of genealogical explorations. With Claude Collins and Rose Trent, who organized the reception following the preconference, Johnnie made everyone feel a warm welcome to match the temperatures.

Phyllis Morefield had a cornucopia of news about online genealogical research, thanks to her recent work as a volunteer at the MHA booth in Cincinnati where the National Genealogical Society was holding its annual conference. MHA thanks Phyllis both for her hard work in Cincinnati and Big Stone Gap and for the entertaining presentation in which she shared tips and stories about genealogical research. 

Phyllis Starnes spoke informally about the promises and pitfalls of genetic testing for genealogical research, helping us through the labyrinth of Y-DNA, mitochondrial, and autosomal studies of Melungeons. We owe Phyllis thanks for generating more questions in the q&a than the rest of us combined, and for answering them deftly and capably.

Tomorrow I will share an appreciation of the keynote address given by Arwin D. Smallwood, which conferees clearly felt was a great presentation giving hints of a possible "grand unified theory" of Melungeon origins that includes and combines most previous approaches.

[Melungeon Heritage Association]

Arwin D. Smallwood, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Colonial American History at the University of Memphis, was the keynote speaker at 13^th Union in 2009, and has been a presenter in every subsequent Union, returning this year at 16^th to give a keynote address that featured new dimensions of the research he has been pursuing for several years on the Tuscarora tribe’s diaspora from his native Bertie County.  This year Dr. Smallwood included a detailed accounting of Virginia’s legal oppression of people of color, a tightening noose of restrictions throughout the seventeenth century and into the eighteenth.  This becomes a factor in the migration of African-European mixed families southward into North Carolina and westward into mountainous regions of Virginia, away from the plantations and slavery and into frontier communities where they interblended with Indians who had likewise been displaced.  MHA is indebted to Dr. Smallwood for his ongoing work which tends to incorporate the traditionally-accepted triracial explanation of Melungeon origins with the more exotic possibilities of Mediterranean ancestry suggested by folklore. He was extensively interviewed by a local newspaper reporter so we look forward to seeing the coverage.

[Lynda Logan]

Always enjoy hearing what Arwin has learned each year & especially enjoyed this year!!!!

[Melungeon Heritage Association]

Dr. Terry Mullins opened the Saturday proceedings with a perspective on Appalachian community histories from an author who has made many contributions in this field.  His doctoral dissertation, on Bishop Virginia/West Virginia, was published by Overmountain press in 1996, and he has since coauthored photographic histories of Tazewell County, Virginia and of four communities within that county: Tazewell (2006), Burke’s Garden (2007), Jewell Ridge (2008), and Bluefield (2009).  Hidden Histories of Tazewell County (2010) was edited by Dr. Mullins. He also discussed the experience of writing a church history for Pisgah UMC in 1993, and being recently commissioned to write histories of two smaller Southwest Virginia communities. MHA owes thanks to Terry for his children’s book Melungeons Out of the Dungeon and for all his work bringing the Melungeon story to Appalachian community history.

[Melungeon Heritage Association]

The photo of Wayne Winkler in the current Coalfield Progress is testimony to his courage in being the only speaker to give his presentation outdoors under a tent, as advertised.  Although he spoke in fiery heat, the morning after an incredibly stormy night across the region, there were no “firestorms” of controversy.  Most of his talk was devoted to explaining how Melungeons have been misunderstood and mythologized in traditionally-cited primary sources. But in the final third, he delved into the recent publicity about Melungeon DNA, which he had discussed in a radio interview just before coming to 16^th Union.

Phyllis Starnes had prepared the conferees on Friday afternoon to distinguish between three aspects of recent discussions of Melungeon DNA.  The lab results, and the study itself, are matters of objective fact that is indisputable; the interpretation in this or any report is necessarily tinged with subjective bias; the soundbites conveyed by the media confuse and distort both the study and the report.

Wayne followed up on the DNA issue by explaining that the negative spin of the recent AP story and especially the headlines were not intended by the report authors.  Yet the headlines were undeniably negative-- in that our Native American and Mediterranean ancestry were allegedly disproven and relegated to the status of racist mythology—more than positive about what was proven.  After all, the study authors selected “a multi-ethnic population” as a subtitle, and not “mulatto wannabe Indians” which nonetheless has been the stereotypical insult applied to Melungeons in the wake of the AP story.  Conferees were left feeling that the air had been cleared of some misunderstandings and hard feelings.  What the study  does prove beyond dispute is the subsaharan African Y DNA lineage of many families of the Newman’s Ridge Melungeon community.  But by its very nature, such a study cannot disprove the triracial status of Melungeons in general—which has been unanimously attested by generations of social scientists as well as testimony of Melungeons themselves. Mediterranean ancestry was repeatedly claimed by 19^th century Melungeons in addition to Native American, English, and African ancestry, and not as a cover story to deny the triracial foundations of their communities. In his closing remarks, Wayne stated clearly that nothing in any DNA evidence conflicts with the triracial-and-beyond understanding of Melungeons presented in Dr. Smallwood’s keynote address the night before.

Since 1998, the Melungeon Heritage Association has been claiming and celebrating the full multi-ethnicity of our extended kinship network.  We thank Wayne Winkler for his presentation at 16^th Union, handling a situation rife with confusion and controversy in a way that brought greater understanding of all the nuances and complexities involved.

[Melungeon Heritage Association]

Lisa Alther’s presentation combined two books published in the past year, both set in southern Appalachia and depicting communities on the margins of so-called civilization. Washed in the Blood, Alther’s eighth novel but the first on Melungeons, was published by Mercer University Press in late 2011.  It was the topic of a preview at 15^th Union in Swannanoa last summer, but now that the book is available Lisa graciously agreed to devote half her presentation to it at 16th Union, before discussing her hugely successful new non-fiction study of the Hatfield-McCoy feud.

Couchtown, Virginia, the fictional setting of most of Washed in the Blood, is located some distance east of Big Stone Gap, but its story will be recognizable to MHA readers even though the word Melungeon never appears. (Alther explained that the characters would not have used the word so it had no place in the novel.) The Tug Fork Valley, some distance north of Big Stone Gap, is the historical setting for Blood Feud, and once again Alther painstaking and lovingly recreates an Appalachian community of the past that has been shrouded in myth and mystery.

Readers are indebted to Lisa for her sensitive, humorous, compassionate rendering of Melungeon history, both in her novel and her earlier non-fiction book Kinfolks. (2007)  MHA congratulates her on the immediate bestseller status of Blood Feud, testimony to her skill in bringing narrative techniques from fiction to make history come to life.

[Melungeon Heritage Association]

Sharon Ewing, museum director and park manager, opened our final Saturday afternoon session with a narrated presentation of slides depicting the history of Big Stone Gap. Her 2008 Arcadia book Big Stone Gap from the series Images of America: Virginia was the source of photos, and Sharon’s humorous account of various figures in the town’s history gave the conferees a better feel for the community which was so welcoming to us.

MHA’s gratitude to Sharon extends beyond her lively presentation. Since January, she and chief ranger Aaron Davis have provided great assistance to our planning process for 16^th Union.  During the event, they were constantly supportive and available to us, assisted by seven young (high school student) volunteers from the Youth Conservation Corps, the museum staff, and Ariel, another volunteer with several years of experience with the Museum, now a college student.  They helped us with book sales, equipment setup, all the errands that arise at the last minute, and all cheerfully despite the extreme conditions outdoors.  Aaron Davis deserves a special word of thanks for his early warning of the Derecho that was heading towards southwest Virginia, giving us plenty of time to reach our motel rooms to watch TV coverage of the massive storm that barely missed Wise County but devastated some of our hometowns across West Virginia and Virginia.

The hospitality of the museum and the town, and the satisfaction of MHA conferees with the setting, were such that we were left wondering, not whether to return for a future Union—but when, and how regularly thereafter.  A member survey was taken at 16^th Union which will help the board plan 17^th and 18^th Union venues and dates well in advance.