Melungeons to gather on June 23 and 24

Press release:

Melungeons Gather on June 23 and 24

The Melungeon Heritage Association (MHA) will meet on Friday and Saturday, June 23rd and 24th, in Vardy and Morristown, Tennessee. The theme of this year’s event is Melungeons and the Arts. Anyone who has an interest in the Melungeons is invited to attend.

This gathering is funded by a grant of $2,000 from the Arts Fund of East Tennessee Foundation. The East Tennessee Foundation is a nonprofit organization serving more than 25 counties in Tennessee. It has awarded more than $223 million to individuals and charities throughout its 30-year history.

“This is our 21st annual gathering,” says MHA president Scott Withrow. “We’re proud to partner with Walters State Community College and the East Tennessee Foundation to present this educational and cultural program.”

The Melungeons are a multi-ethnic group first documented in the Clinch River region of northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia in the early 19thcentury. For more than a century, researchers have tried to work through the folklore and legends about this group to learn of their origins. Questions about their racial status led to discrimination, both legal and social, against the Melungeons.

The weekend will kick off in the Vardy Community of Hancock County, Tennessee, the site of the Presbyterian mission established in 1900 to serve the Melungeons.The Vardy Community Historical Society will hold an Open House, beginning Friday at 2 p.m. Visitors can tour the museum housed in the old Presbyterian church, and see artifacts from the Vardy School, a state-of-the-art school which offered educational opportunities to Melungeon students who could not attend public schools in the county. VCHS members will be on hand to answer questions about the school.

Visitors may also tour the cabin of Mahala Mullins, the legendary moonshiner whose size rendered her, in the words of one county sheriff, “ketchable, but not fetchable.” The cabin, built in the 1860s, was taken apart piece by piece, moved from its original location on Newman’s Ridge, and restored in its present location across from the church museum.

On Friday at 7 p.m., MHA will host a reception in the lobby of the Jack E. Campbell College Center on the campus of Walters State Community College in Morristown, Tennessee.

On Saturday, presentations will be made in the Vic Duggins Foundation Room in the Campbell College Center. Speakers will include Dr. Tammy Stachowicz from Davenport University in Holland, Michigan, along with several of her students who will present posters relating to Appalachian art and culture. Other speakers include Dr. Katie Vande Brake, of King University in Bristol, Tennessee, and author of How They Shine: Melungeons in theFiction of Appalachia; and author Lisa Alther (Kinflicks, Original Sins, Washed In The Blood, etc.)

Also featured will be a discussion of the Melungeon outdoor drama Walk Toward the Sunset, which ran in Sneedville, Tennessee, from 1969 to 1976. Wayne Winkler, author of Walking Toward the Sunset: The Melungeons of Appalachia and an upcoming book about the play, will be joined by Dr. John Lee Welton, who directed the play.

MHA encourages attendees to bring children and young adults to the event, which will feature activities for young people. To close the afternoon, the children will perform a scene from Walk Toward the Sunset.

For more information, contact Wayne Winkler at (423) 439-6441 or winklerw@etsu.edu.