Black Voices of Appalachia Oral History Project

African Americans shed light on the history of Black folks in Appalachia by sharing their stories through a program established by the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Season 1 includes interviews with Shirley Carr Clowney, Daniel “The Blackalachian” White, Anne Miller Woodford, and Ron Davis Sr.

“We were the first three Blacks that enrolled into Maryville College after Brown v. Board,” Shirley Carr Clowney told the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s oral history interviewer. Shirley Carr Clowney can remember when she and her two friends enrolled at Maryville College. She also recalls growing up in the old stone home that her father built on Hood Street and how her upbringing led her to research the history of African Americans in Blount County and become an author.

Daniel “The Blackalachian” White tells interviewers how hiking saved his life; his time growing up in Asheville, NC; his treacherous hike thru the Smokies; how he received his trail name; and how the AT inspired him to create a wilderness camp for underserved youth.

Although Anne Miller Woodford moved around the United States since she attended Ohio University in 1969, she has always called “the far western part of North Carolina,” or Andrews, NC, her home. In 2021, Anne Miller Woodford sat down with park interviewers to talk about the property that she grew up on in Andrews, known as “Happy Top,” the courtship of her mother and father, how she learned how to be an artist by painting on drywall, and how she is using art to impact Appalachia today.

Ron Davis Sr, a native of Knoxville, TN, Davis Sr. remembers how his family prepared the Mebane family’s cabin on Jake’s Creek annually for decades; recreating in the park, the joy and discrimination that he endured working for the Tennessee Valley Authority; and how the Great Smoky Mountains shaped the future of his family.

Listen to the podcast at www.nps.gov/podcasts/black-voices-of-appalachia-oral-history-project.htm.