This is the first book by Cicero M. Fain, III, a professor at the College of Southern Maryland. He grew up in Huntington, West Virginia, the third generation of his family to live there. He began the research for this book eight years ago as part of his doctoral dissertation at Ohio State University. This book covers African-American life in Huntington from 1825 into the middle of the twentieth century, but does not cover the impact of integration on the community. “Fain’s account of this group of blacks’ migrations and their efforts to build community and combat the ravages of racism and Jim Crowism is exceptional and matchless,” - William H. Turner. “This book not only broadens our understanding of the process of modernization in Appalachia by bringing black Appalachians onto the historical stage, it also casts light on the experience of development in Appalachia’s urban places and demonstrates how an essentially rural people shaped their own meaningful communities in a new environment of both opportunity and repression,” - Ronald D. Eller.
Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 2019. 244 pages with an Index, Notes, and Bibliography. Trade paperback.