100 Days in Appalachia

Five Years After It Became a National Park, There’s a Growing Divide In West Virginia’s New River Gorge

Many long-time West Virginians see the divide between their reality of the area — a community that still faces long-standing ...
100 Days in Appalachia

For This W.Va. Family, Legislative Attention on ‘Warehousing’ People with Intellectual Disabilities at State Hospitals Is too Late

Richard Rothermund was healthy and generally happy before he was confined to Mildred Mitchell-Bateman Hospital in Huntington in 2020, according to Sue Rouse, his mother. There, Sue says, a lack of ...
100 Days in Appalachia

Getting Over: The Disgraced W.Va. Gospel Music Promoter Who Found Redemption in Indie Wrestling

The sound of twanging electric guitars fills the Madison Civic Center, a small gymnasium in the heart of southern West Virginia’s coalfields. It’s “Ride Stallion Ride,” the entrance music for WWE Hall ...
100 Days in Appalachia

Across Appalachia, Photo ID Requirements Complicate Voting

When Amanda Saint went to vote in the 2020 election, she didn’t anticipate having any problems. For years, the 36-year-old nurse had been living and voting just outside of Huntsville, Alabama. But ...
100 Days in Appalachia

What is the New Apostolic Reformation? How a Religio-Political Movement is Affecting U.S. and Appalachian Politics

Apostles and prophets. Spiritual warfare. Dominionism and the New Apostolic Reformation. You might come across these terms if you follow politics these days. Here’s some context and clarity about the ...
100 Days in Appalachia

Documenting the Appalachian Intifada: A Review of ‘So Much to be Angry About’

Liberation movements around the world and throughout history have always created our own media: to tell our own stories, to teach our own people and to strengthen our movements and organizations. In ...
100 Days in Appalachia

Big Tech Comes to Tucker County, WV

Pamela Moe was reading the paper in late March when she spotted a public notice from a company she’d never heard of. Fundamental Data, a Virginia-based company, had applied for a permit from West ...
100 Days in Appalachia

‘Harm Reduction Saves Lives’: Meet the Appalachians Doing the Work

Recovery from addiction is possible. For help, please call the free and confidential treatment referral hotline (1-800-662-HELP) or visit findtreatment.gov. The numbers are now frighteningly familiar: ...
100 Days in Appalachia

Hillbilly Horror: Reckoning With a Genre 15 Years After ‘Wrong Turn’

“You’re not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling? And that accent you’ve tried so desperately to shed: pure West Virginia. What is your father, dear? Is he a coal ...
100 Days in Appalachia

Appalachia’s Young Voters Could Impact the 2024 Election

James Staley, 28, spends evenings knocking on doors and canvassing for Down Home North Carolina. The nonpartisan but left-leaning nonprofit is dedicated to building power among poor and working-class ...
100 Days in Appalachia

The Straining of North Carolina’s Chattooga River and the Indigenous Artform that Could Save It

I climb a boulder that juts out into rapids. The rushing water is so loud it drowns out my breath. I’ve come to the banks of the Chattooga River for solitude, for the way water carries away inner ...