Dr. Water’s reading list

Posted on by Carrie Eidson
Photo by Carrie Eidson

In his speech at the Kenilworth Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., UNC Asheville professor Darin Waters referenced several other scholars and writers who have studied African American history in Asheville, North Carolina, the Appalachian region and the United States. The topics covered in their texts range from the history of slavery in Appalachia to the protests at Asheville’s public housing sites in the 1960s to the deaths of Tamir Rice and Michael Brown in 2014. If you’re interested in exploring these topics further, or having some added context for Waters’ speech, here’s what he recommends:

Have a chat with Sarah Judson, associate professor of history and Africana studies at UNC Asheville

Read Civilities and Civil Rights : Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom by William Chafe

Read The Southern Highlander and His Homeland by John C. Campbell

Learn more about Carter G. Woodson

Check out Mountain Masters and other works by John Inscoe

Spend some time reading the works of Gordon McKinney

And Wilma Dunaway

Catch a lecture by Richard Starnes, associate professor and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Western Carolina University (maybe at the next African Americans in WNC Conference)

Connect with Steven Nash, assistant professor at East Tennessee State University

Read Blacks in Appalachia by William Turner and Edward J. Cabbell

And Asheville: A History by Nan Chase

Check out Randall Kennedy’s essay Black America’s Promised Land: Why I Am Still a Racial Optimist

As well as Why We Won’t Wait: Resisting the War Against the Black and Brown Underclass by Robin Kelley

And finally, check out Waters’ own op-ed in The Urban News, Bridging the Psychological Divide: Restructuring Our Collective Historical Memory 

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About Carrie Eidson
Multimedia journalist and Green Scene editor at Mountain Xpress. Part-time Twitterer @mxenv but also reachable at ceidson@mountainx.com. Follow me @carrieeidson
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