New book documents black experience in Appalachia
Annual camp meeting at Rock Springs Campground in White County, GA. African American have been holding these multi day religious gatherings at the same site in the Appalachian Mountains for more than 130 years. Chris Aluka Berry photo
“Affrilachia: Testimonies,” by Chris Aluka Berry sets out to document the Black experience in Appalachia. The book is a historical artifact that honors, represents and celebrates a diverse community whose own history is the history of Appalachia, and whose existence has shaped the region.
“The people and communities captured in these pages shall never disappear,” Kelly Elaine Navies writes in the introduction to the book. “They belong to the ancient Appalachian Mountain range, their voices forever singing in the wind, loud and clear, if only you will listen.”
Affrilachia is a term that was first coined by Frank X Walker, a poet from Kentucky. Walker began using the word in the 1990s to focus on the cultural contributions of Black artists, writers and musicians in the Appalachian region of the United States. The poet’s work and the term itself work to negate the stereotype of Appalachian culture that is often portrayed as predominantly white, rural and poor. Affrilachia is also the title of Walker’s 2000 book of poetry.
In this new visual history book, Berry, a photographer, storyteller and curator, gives voice to the broad spectrum of Black folks who have lived in the Appalachian region for centuries.
Published by the University Press of Kentucky in October 2024, the book contains hundreds of photographs made by Berry over the course of eight years during which time he immersed himself in the communities and lives of Black Appalachians throughout Western North Carolina, northeast Georgia and eastern Tennessee.
In addition to photographs, the book also contains an introduction by Kelly Elaine Navies, as well as essays and poetry from both Navies and Maia A. Surdam.
Related Items
Live with a SEAL, and salute the first president
Ready for the ‘Chili Cook-Off Stroll’?
Lean into the blue: Town Mountain celebrates 20 years
Brad Thor’s ‘Shadow of Doubt’ didn’t delight
Navies is a poet, writer and oral historian. Several of her history projects are located at the Southern Oral History Program, the Reginald F. Lewis Maryland Museum of African American History and Culture, the Washington DC Public Library Peoples’ Archive and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture where she coordinates the oral history program. Surdam is a historian, educator and author who lives in Western North Carolina. She is the programs director of the Partnership for Appalachian Girls’ Education (PAGE), and her academic work focuses on rural communities.
Berry grew up in rural South Carolina and now lives in the mountains of Madison County. He says his experience growing up with a white mother and Black father made him sensitive to questions of racial representation at an early age, influenced his early photography and continues to inform the questions he asks and images he makes.
Berry got his start in photography working for The State Newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, and went on to a freelance career with work appearing in Time, NPR, The Atlantic, L.A. Times, The New York Times, London Free Press and more. His photography is part of collections at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
A book like “Affrilachia: Testimonies,” full of stunning photographs, will no doubt contain symbolism and meaning that varies with each pair of eyes that take hold of it. But there is one symbol, a sort of metaphor, running through the book that is especially important to Berry.
One photograph in the book shows Deacon B.C. Mance, 103 years old at the time the photograph was made, holding a handkerchief up in front of his face. According to Berry, the photograph was not planned.
“I’m trying to make some portraits and then, just in joking with me, Deacon Mance takes his handkerchief and holds it up,” Berry said during a book event at Malaprops Bookstore in Asheville Feb. 5. “This moment happened so fast, y’all, I didn’t even know if it was in focus.”
It wasn’t until Berry got home and started going through his images that he realized what he had captured.
“As I looked at this photo, I realized that the veil was a metaphor of how black communities have been in these mountains for hundreds of years,” said Berry. “I started looking for that… I decided to start obscuring people’s faces. When you see photos where someone’s face is obscured, that person’s meant to be an archetype, that person’s meant to symbolize all those stories that we will never know, all the communities that we will never know.”
Berry invites readers to pay attention to this metaphor as they move through the book.
Of the countless communities Berry spent time in and photographed, readers in The Smoky Mountain News coverage area may recognize several. The Hillside community in Weaverville, the Texana community in Murphy, and the Mount Zion Church in Cullohwee — the same community whose history lies at the center of Jackson County author David Joy’s latest book, “Those We Thought We Knew.”
Cousins Drake Lewis, 11, Carson Daniels,11, Myla Lewis,17, and Adam Daniels, 20, wait their turn to get food during the 93rd birthday party for their great grandfather Montreal “Bounce” Brown at his home in Jonesborough, Tenn., September 11, 2022. Chris Aluka Berry photo
“This church was actually at one time on the grounds of Western Carolina University, but through a series of events these folks were pushed, the university paid them so much money to make them move their church and all of their graves,” said Berry.
When Berry first went to the church in 2016, he met the church matriarch, Mae Louise Allen. She is pictured in the book, dressed in red, being carried into the back door of the Mount Zion Church.
Berry had planned to come back to photograph Allen after their initial meeting, but 19 days later, she passed away. This would become a common and distressing problem for Berry. As many as 20 people captured in photographs throughout the book have since passed away.
“It hit me hard,” Berry said. “Because I didn’t know about the history and culture in the mountains and then I was finding out and then I quickly found out that a lot of these communities are disappearing. And that’s what everyone told me, ‘Man, you should have been here 50 years ago.’”
But, Berry says, he can’t go back in time. So, he has done his best to document the moment. The stories past and present, the living and the disappearing.
“I’m a documentary photographer, so I’m not setting things up or conceptualizing things,” said Berry. “I just know, we all know, today is a day in history. Today is tomorrow’s history. That is how this project began.”
Like any diligent storytellers, Berry, Navies and Surdam seek to complicate not only the Black experience in Appalachia, but the Appalachian narrative as a whole. Throughout the book photographs, poems and essays all draw attention to the vast diversity of Affrilachian experiences.
Chris Aluka Berry signs copies of new book. Chris Aluka Berry photo
Surdam said that several stories in the book “stand out as examples of the complicated histories, and ones that you wouldn’t necessarily know unless you’re talking to people and learning about those first hand experiences.”
While the book is not split into explicit chapters, Berry says that movements within the book are indicated by landscape photographs because so much of life, culture and history in Appalachia is dominated by the landscape.
“As you see those landscape photos, just recognize that that’s letting you know that something new is about to happen,” Berry said. “I tried to incorporate the land into this book. All of us live in the mountains, so we know what it’s like here. But I really wanted it to be to where someone that came and looked at this book that had never spent time in Appalachia, by the time they were done with the book, they would have an idea of what the landscape is, what it feels like to be here and then to also have that vibe of what the black experience in the mountains is like.”
“Of course, this book, like any book, is just a glimpse,” said Berry.
Want to go?
Chris Aluka Berry will present “Affrilachia: Testimonies” with local artist and storyteller Ann Miller Woodford at 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 13, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva. Free and open to the public. For more information visit citylightsnc.com.
Another event for the book will be held at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 26, at the Albert Carlton Cashiers Community Library. The event is free and open to the public. For more information visit cashiershistoricalsociety.org.
