
Affrilachia is a term that focuses on the cultural contributions of
African-American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...
artists, writers, and musicians in the
Appalachia
Appalachia ( ) is a geographic region located in the Appalachian Mountains#Regions, central and southern sections of the Appalachian Mountains in the east of North America. In the north, its boundaries stretch from the western Catskill Mountai ...
n region of the United States.
The term "Affrilachia" is attributed to
Kentucky
Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...
-based writer
Frank X Walker, who began using it in the 1990s as a way to negate the stereotype of Appalachian culture,
which portrays Appalachians as predominantly white and living in small mountain communities. The term Affrilachian stands for an African American who is a native or resident in the Appalachian region.
[Spriggs, Bianca. "Frank X Walker: Exemplar of Affrilachia." Appalachian Heritage, vol. 39 no. 4, 2011, p. 21–25. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/aph.2011.0109.] ''Affrilachia'' is also the title of Walker's 2000 book of poetry, published by Old Cove Press.
Frank X Walker co-founded
The Affrilachian Poets and in 2009, created ''The Affrilachian Journal of Arts and Culture''.
Frank X Walker is a graduate of the University of Kentucky, currently serving as an associate professor in the UK Department of English. Walker's partnership with the University of Kentucky allowed him to also create and teach an educational program on African-American and Africana studies, which further contributed to and raised awareness of Affrilachian art, culture, and history.
The word "Affrilachia" is included in the second edition of the ''
Oxford American Dictionary
The ''Oxford American Dictionary'' (''OAD'') is a single-volume dictionary of American English. It was the first dictionary published by the Oxford University Press to be prepared by American lexicographers and editors.
The work was based on th ...
''.
In 2011,
Marie T. Cochran created the
Affrilachian Artist Project with the goal of building a sustainable collaborative network among the region's artists and community organizers.
Today, the project has over 2,000 members and has organized several Affrilachian-themed art exhibitions.
Members
The Appalachian region has more than thirty prominent art community members who identify with the term Affrilachian, including writers, musicians, and artists such as
Frank X Walker,
Nikky Finney
Nikky Finney (born Lynn Carol Finney on August 26, 1957, in Conway, South Carolina) is an American poet. She was the Guy Davenport Endowed Professor of English at the University of Kentucky for twenty years. In 2013, she accepted a position at ...
, Kelly Norman Ellis, Mitchell L. H. Douglas,
Crystal Wilkinson,
Parneshia Jones
Parneshia Jones (born 1980) is an American publisher, poet, and editor. She is the author of a 2015 poetry collection, ''Vessel'', which won the Midwest Book Award. In 2020, Jones was appointed director of Northwestern University Press.
Life
Ha ...
, Ricardo Nazario y Colón, Ellen Hagan, and Keith S. Wilson.
As of March 2022, 3.4K people currently follow the Affrilachian Artist Project's Facebook page.
Culture
Literature
Frank X Walker wrote ''Isaac Murphy: I Dedicate This Ride'' (2010), ''Masked Man, Black: Pandemic and Protest Poems'' (2020)'','' ''Black Box: Poems'' (2006), and ''Affrilachia: Poems by Frank X Walker'' (2000).
Crystal Wilkinson is the author of the books ''The Birds of Opulence'' (2016), ''Water Street'' (2011), ''Blackberries, Blackberries'' (2000), and ''Perfect Black'' (2021).
In 2018, Affrilachian poets celebrated 25 years since the term was created in the book, ''Black Bone: 25 Years of the Affrilachian Poets'' edited by Bianca Lynn Spriggs and Jeremy Paden, published by The University Press of Kentucky.
This book had contributions from Frank X Walker himself along with other prominent members of the Affrilachian literary community.
Visual arts
Appalachia is also home to vibrant African American art communities. In 2011, artist, educator, and curator
Marie Cochran started the western North Carolina–based Affrilachian Artist Project to combat the common perception of Appalachia as a racially homogenous, white region.
She co-curated the Affrilachian Artist Project's inaugural exhibition at the August Wilson Cultural Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A traveling version of the exhibit, which includes work by LaKeisha Blount, Victoria Casey-McDonald, and Rahkie Mateen, has been hosted by galleries throughout Appalachia.
Music
History
African Americans, including those who identify as Affrilachian, have had a significant impact on the sound of Appalachian music over the years. The start of African American influence on Appalachian music began when individuals were forcefully brought from West Africa to the United States and put into slavery.
Along with West African enslaved musicians came various stringed instruments made from gourds, such as the
ngoni, that would later become the banjo, an instrument that is common in Appalachian music.
The enslaved West African musicians played stringed instruments using a unique picking technique called “
clawhammer
Clawhammer, sometimes called down-picking, overhand, or most commonly known as frailing, is a distinctive banjo playing style and a common component of American old-time music. The style likely descends from that of West African lutes, suc ...
”, which has become a popular banjo style in the Appalachian region.
African Americans continued to influence Appalachian music on plantations, where work songs and spirituals were frequently sung, and into the 19th and early 20th centuries.
By this time, string music began to be associated with minstrelsy and black-face performances, so African American musicians distanced themselves from it.
Some modern string bands, however, such as the now-disbanded
Carolina Chocolate Drops
The Carolina Chocolate Drops were an Old-time music, old-time String band (American music), string band from Durham, North Carolina, Durham, North Carolina. Their 2010 album, ''Genuine Negro Jig (album), Genuine Negro Jig,'' won the Grammy Award ...
, have worked to reclaim Appalachian music for the Affrilachian community.
With members including
Rhiannon Giddens
Rhiannon Giddens (born February 21, 1977) is an American musician known for her eclectic folk music. She is a founding member of the country, blues, and old-time music band the Carolina Chocolate Drops, where she was the lead singer, fiddle pl ...
and
Dom Flemons
Dominique Flemons (born August 30, 1982) is an American old-time music, Piedmont blues, and neotraditional country multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. He is a proficient player of the banjo, fife, guitar, harmonica, percussion, quil ...
, the Carolina Chocolate Drops won a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album in 2011.
Cuisine
Affrilachian food and cuisine has slight variations from region to region, just like the rest of Appalachian culture. Some of the staples across Affrilachian cuisine are the practices of preserving produce through pickling, fermenting, and canning as well as drying out other crops such as beans and corn.
Much of the food that is eaten in the various Appalachian regions has historically included the crops that families could grow themselves or trade for at local markets. Another Affrilachian staple is the style of pan-frying many different dishes using butter as opposed to neutral oils—a technique also common in French and Creole cooking. Rufus Estes has differentiated his fried chicken from many others using the "pan-fried in butter" method.
Molasses and sorghum are frequently used in baking and as sweeteners. Vegetables such as okra, kale, collard greens, sweet potatoes, and cabbage are prevalent in Affrilachian cooking as are a variety of beans grown in the region. Cornbread is a common side dish. Fruit cobblers and sweet potato pies are popular desserts.
Malinda Russell
Malinda Russell (ca. 1812 – ?) was a free African-American woman from Tennessee who earned her living as a cook and published the first known cookbook by an African-American woman. The book is historically significant, as it shows that African- ...
has been coined as an influential member of Affrilachia because of the cookbook ''The Domestic Cookbook: Containing a Careful Selection of Useful Receipts for the Kitchen'' that she published and her "Washington Cake" that gained fame from its combination of citrus and spiced flavors.
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References
External links
Affrilachian Artist Project's Facebook page
African-American culture
African-American history in Appalachia
Appalachian writers
Appalachian culture
Affrilachian writers
Geographical neologisms
1990s neologisms