Life in Lynch | Kentucky Life | KET

in the mountains of Harlan County Lynch began as a small coal camp it grew into a large and diverse community that included many immigrants and African Americans today the town of Lynch has fewer than 1000 residents but it's history tells a bigger story about the families who left the mountains and the ones who stayed [Music] to meet people in the city like they live in their life and fast forward one day they wake up and say where has it all go where is my life now when I was growing up here this was probably the best community in the world and being in the South Sea the United Mineworkers was here and they had equal pay for everybody and US Steel had equal housing new jobs and everybody was making the same amount smarter and living about the same so it wasn't in the problems here with anybody I retired from the coal mine and I was born and raised here I live in the city there's too much hustle and bustle but here you comfortably relax you can sit on your porch could enjoy the view I loved it it's my hometown my mother and father were born and raised here my both of my grandfather's mined coal here for a combined like 60 years so this was their first and only job and they both like many of the coal miners here in this community succumb to black lung and gave their lives to that job in this house that we're sitting in today is my maternal grandmother's home so my heritage is here my roots are here this community is special particularly to the african-americans who migrated here and who made this place home because it's so close knit everybody speaks here everybody's you know most everybody's polite with all like one big family look after each other the community really has one heartbeat and that doesn't mean that everybody agrees with each other and it doesn't even mean that everyone likes one another we all love each other and understand that you know what what we went through as just our migration story what the men and later on women who entered the the coal mining industry what they went through and what they sacrificed is something that will forever bond us our area was never made to be a city this was a coal camp and the main store was the big store owned by the company so all the residential places were just homes they were not corner stores or anything they were not factories coal mining was the king and the rest of the place were just communities to live in so he created a community atmosphere and now that you know we're here without us deal without two big coal there are no places we have maybe two businesses here there's no places to bring a business to in Lynch there's even if anybody wanted to relocate there's no business place here I was working on Wall Street the financial crisis happened I was like who wants to do this I don't so I quit and I decided to pursue a peach PhD in sociology and I sat right outside on my grandmother's porch and I just looked around and I I don't know if something hit me and I said this is your project you have to tell this story you know when I was a kid Lynch was booming and I came back and I couldn't help notice this place is 1/3 the size than it was since the last time I've been back and when I say sighs I mean both in terms of the population but also the actual physical space there have been entire streets that have been bulldozed neighborhoods that used to be there when I was a kid that no longer exists and that was difficult to encounter and confront and I felt like there's no other story that I want to tell than this one our black teachers really pushed us when we were in school to excel but we always had that cushion of coal mining to fall on if we didn't so now we don't have that cushion we have to pushed it the excellence of education we've got doctors lawyers judges we've got of everywhere professional people and it all started here and we just can't stop if there's any more kids here we got to give them the same opportunity that we gave them until we pass on we have a grandchild Brandon he gets enough in him then what is he gonna be when he grows up this he's gonna be the next president of the United States it's possible if I would look at the way the country is being divided racially now I would look at at Lynch before 1960 or 61 when integration came we lived in coal camps the blacks and white lived in the same camps we ate off of the same tables we played ball together we played in the streets together integration came here a lot sooner than it came in and where else it officially happened in 1960 or 61 but we were living together since we were children [Music] the people here in this community they've known me for over a hundred years it is this intergenerational bond it is so important that we feel a sense of pride and wholeness with the beautiful tapestry of stories that make a generation people have to realize sometimes that money and things they don't really make you happy just think about what you want to do in life and get up one day and say well I'm gonna do this and don't listen to people yeah it's kind always somebody gonna say you can't do it but you tell yourself you can I love these mountains I always have and never wanted to live anywhere else I I was always proud to be from this area because some so many people weren't proud of being from here because we didn't have a whole lot but money doesn't make happiness we've gone through some hard times and some but our kids a little I would come in from work and they would come running and jump in my arms we didn't have any money but Stovall some of the happiest days of our lives [Music]

Channel: KET - Kentucky Educational Television

Views: 32,936

Rating: 4.9166665 out of 5

Keywords: KET, Kentucky Educational Television, PBS, public television, public tv, Kentucky (state), Lynch, Harlan Co., coal mining, African Americans, immigration, coal mines, Kentucky Life

Id: a3sDMsiWYMk

Length: 7min 54sec (474 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 11 2018