Join us for our first Conversations with Gurney event of Fall 2019! We are pleased to welcome George Ella Lyon, writer, poet, and teacher to the John Jacob Niles Gallery in the Lucille Caudill Little Fine Arts Library here at UK. 

Appalachian author, Chris Holbrook, visited the University of Kentucky on Monday, April 8, 2019 5:00-6:30PM at the James F. Hardymon Theater in the Davis Marksbury Building. Chris joined Appalachian Center scholar-in-residence, Gurney Norman, as a part of the ongoing series "Conversations with Gurney" to discuss his book Upheaval among other topics related to Appalachia. 

Convo with Gurney from UK College of Arts & Sciences on Vimeo.

Toward Racial Justice and Recognition in Southeastern Kentucky: 100 Years After of the Forced Removal of African Americans from Corbin

100 years after African Americans were expelled from the small railroad town of Corbin, Kentucky, residents are still grappling with how to address Corbin’s exclusionary past and ongoing reputation. This presentation gives a preliminary report on current work in the town to acknowledge and commemorate the 1919 event and move toward racial justice in the community. Seeking to lift up the experiences and voices of African Americans in the tri-county area, this project engages with the complicated work of place-based racial justice initiatives in the coalfields. This presentation explores several questions including: What happened in Corbin in October 1919? What can be done to commemorate the event and address racial issues in the community? What conversations are currently occurring? What are the larger implications for community development and racial justice organizing in Appalachia? 

Sponsored by the Department of Community & Leadership Development

Together with the Niles Center, the Department of African American & Africana Studies, and the Lexington Old Time Music Gathering, the Appalachian Center will host a musical event "Drum and Banjo: African Roots/American Branches" with Joan Brannon and Randy Wilson at the John Jacobs Niles Gallery in the UK Lucille Caudill Little Fine Arts Library on Friday, February 8, 2019 at 3:30PM.  Joan Brannon and Randy Wilson will perform on drum and banjo taking you on a journey from Africa to Appalachia with rhythm, songs and stories linking our past, tunes and beats that have bound us together on this continent, despite all the forces that would drive us apart.

As a percussionist and teacher, Joan Brannon founded the drumming collectives, Sisters of the Sacred Drum and the Sacred Drum Ensemble and has played percussion instruments for the past 20 years. She teaches drumming empowerment classes for youth, enrichment circles for women and facilitates workshops in a variety of settings to bring the power of percussion into community. Joan respects the drum as a sacred instrument that utilizes rhythms for celebration and as a tool for communication, empowerment and community building. She has performed and drummed throughout the US and in Guinea, West Africa.

Randy Wilson's remarkable Appalachian banjo performance marries the excitement of musical virtuosity with the informed perspective of cultural context. He traces the entire sweep of the banjo from the African grasslands to Southern plantations to the mountains of East Kentucky in a way that makes history sparkle with vitality. Jean Ritchie once called Randy "a mountain Pied Piper for kids one to ninety nine." Randy is a very special performer, whose warmth of personality reaches out to the very heart and soul of any audience. 

Join us on April 18th at 6PM in the Gatton Student Center Cinema for a showing of the Ashley York and Sally Rubin Film "Hillbilly," which has garnered a lot of praise at a number of festivals and exhibitions. There will be a reception at the UK Appalachian Center (624 Maxwelton Court) at 8PM following the showing of the film. We hope to see you there!

Join us February 21st at 6PM in the Gatton Student Center Cinema for a showing of "October Sky," the movie imagining of Homer Hickman's story chronicled in Rocket Boys.