John Gaventa further describes how the 1977 flood mobilized citizens toward supplementary research into the inequities connected to land ownership, taxation practices, and other local power dynamics. They requested funding from the ARC for what over time developed into the Appalachian Land Ownership Study, an effort that involved close review of courthouse tax records in …
Following a 1977 flood in central Appalachia that left many people displaced, John Gaventa and others at the Highlander Center organized a study to counter conclusions by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), which failed to consider the role of corporate control and land ownership in land settlement patterns. Here, Gaventa delineates the study’s early days …
On the role of corporate land ownership in rural land settlement patterns Read More »
[Story contributed by Jack Beckford, with assistance from Sara Platt Williams] During the Fall of 1970, the SHC was contacted by the Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Organization (EKWRO), centered in Floyd Co, Ky. EKWRO was already doing organizing among low-income residents in this coal country of mountainous eastern Kentucky. The dynamic leader of EKWRO, a …
Jack Beckford participated in the Health Fair in Eastern Kentucky in the summer of 1971. A letter home shares updates about the Health Fair, its sponsors, the Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Organization and the Appalachian Regional Commission, and social and business activities. Jack Beckford Letter, 26 July 1971, in the Student Health Coalition Project Collection #5649, …
Jack Beckford Letter, Southern Historical Collection, UNC Chapel Hill Read More »
Published 9 January 1975. Click image to enlarge. More on Grundy County:
