Black West Virginia
Stephen Starr details an underappreciated African American community for the BBC. |
"Fleeing white-led violence and racial segregation laws (known as Jim Crow laws) in Southern states after the end of the US Civil War and the abolition of slavery in 1865, African Americans streamed north into the coal fields of West Virginia in search of jobs and a modicum of security.
In the decades that followed, entire communities emerged in coal camps – and thrived, thanks to demand for the much sought-after fuel source. By 1930, around 80,000African Americans were living in southern West Virginia, a figure that had doubled in just 20 years." | Read the full article.
The last known ship of the US slave trade
The discovery of the remains of the Clotilda, 160 years after it sank, brings new life and interest to the settlement built by the original survivors.
Zoey Goto