Center of Appalachian culture to close in Cincinnati

Growing up in the Cumberland Mountains of Eastern Kentucky in the 1950s, Michael Maloney lived in a log cabin with no plumbing or electricity, but with eight siblings and his mother. His father had been murdered in a dispute with neighbors when Maloney was just a toddler.

As a child, Maloney would walk a mile to a one-room schoolhouse; it was another three-mile trek – including a river crossing by rowboat – to the nearest store.

“It wasn’t all that different from the life of Abraham Lincoln over 100 years earlier,” Maloney said of his life in the Appalachian region.

That changed when he moved to Cincinnati to attend seminary and college in the 1960s, one individual in a sea of Appalachian migrants seeking education, work or both.

Upon his arrival, Maloney “saw how his people were getting kicked around,” treated as second-class citizens. So he joined forces with a man named Ernie Mynatt and began fighting for social justice for the increasing number of migrants, eventually forming the Urban Appalachian Council in 1974.

Forty years later, the council, based in Price Hill, has closed its doors. The board of directors made it final with a vote on Sunday.

The nonprofit, which served thousands of Appalachians and their descendents though education, job readiness, substance-abuse counseling and cultural-awareness programs, just couldn’t come up with the funding to continue, said council President Debbie Zorn.

Some of UAC’s programs will continue, picked up by other social service groups in Price Hill, and an effort is underway to find a new path to keep the traditions and culture of Appalachia alive in Cincinnati, Maloney said.

With more than half a million Appalachians and their descendents in the area, it’s necessary to forge on, Maloney said.

“In the 21st century we need to find out what we need to do now,” Maloney said. “We aren’t meeting people getting off the bus like we did in the ’60s. We’re dealing with long-term problems like lack of education, unemployment, substance abuse and crime. This time allows us to step back and think about that.”

Appalachian descendents numerous in Cincinnati

Appalachia is a cultural region in the eastern United States, stretching from southwest New York to northern Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. Its inhabitants – of English, Scots-Irish, Welsh, Native American and African descent – made their homes in the hills and mountains, outside the control of colonial European power.

Isolated from urban centers, the region was late to adopt modern technologies and medicine, advances which shook the communities upon arrival. Medical advances were able to reduce the number of deaths during childbirth and childhood, resulting in a population boom. But more people meant fewer jobs, a problem magnified by mechanization in the coal mines and farming.

By the 1960s, families began leaving Appalachia for better lives elsewhere, including Over-the-Rhine. In the decade to come they would disperse throughout Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky, although a concentrated population remained in Price Hill and other West Side neighborhoods.

As much as 40 percent of Cincinnati’s population has some Appalachian heritage, according to “The Social Areas of Cincinnati,” an analysis released in 2013 by the University of Cincinnati School of Planning, the United Way and University of Cincinnati Community Research Collaborative. They made their lives throughout the area, from Bond Hill to Indian Hill.

After being founded in Over-the-Rhine, the council moved a little while later, opening offices on Eighth Street in Lower Price Hill and Warsaw Avenue in East Price Hill.

“The majority of the people who came up from the mountains are doing quite well,” Maloney said. “But we still have people we are very concerned about.”

Council created a space for neighbors, scholars, doers

Through the years the council has touched countless lives, whether through ABLE, its adult education program, or AmeriCorps programs, diverse programming focused on the physical and financial health of the community and preservation of Appalachian identity.

“UAC has added immeasurably to the recognition of Appalachians as a cultural group in the city,” Zorn said.

The good news is that key programs will continue: the Lower Price Hill Community School – which is undergoing some changes of its own – will continue ABLE programs and assume ownership of the UAC’s two buildings. Santa Maria Community Services will manage UAC’s Ameri­Corps program.

“We’re grateful for the support of so many partners, volunteers and neighbors over the years,” Zorn said. “We care deeply about the community ... and we are relieved that we have partners ... who also care about continuing these important services.”

Omope Carter Daboiku, who has been involved with the council and the Appalachian Festival, which is organized by the Appalachian Community Development Association, an offshoot of the UAC, said the council’s demise is “like finding out one of your first cousins is dying and you ain’t got the money to go see him,” putting it, as she said, in Appalachian terms where a first cousin is like a brother or sister.

She worries most about the six staff members who lost their jobs as well as the people in the Price Hill neighborhood who have come to depend on the centers for everything from their “morning cup of coffee to their health care plan.”

It is a social part of their lives, she said, where neighbors can chat with staff, get a ride to the bank or a bus token to get up the hill to Kroger.

“Starting fresh is difficult,” Daboiku said.

Appalachians argue there’s a lot worth preserving

Despite her appearance and name, Daboiku is Appalachian through and through. Her father grew up in Virginia, her mother in northern Georgia.

“It’s a regional culture, not a bloodline or race,” Daboiku said. “Anybody who holds onto what I’m going to call frontier pioneering values – if they tell you they are Appalachian, you have to accept that.”

Maloney and other advocates say they’ll continue to champion the music, food, art and history of their people. The research committee – which has helped scholars write numerous books and papers through the years – will keep meeting. The group hopes to engage the public this summer with help from a nonprofit called Citizens for Civic Renewal to figure out where to go from here.

“Ethnic pride can cut both ways, it can divide people and it can unite people,” Maloney said. “But we all need to know where we came from or we don’t know where we are. We are all immigrants, therefore we need to be accepting of the next group that comes to town.”■

Take in some Appalachian culture

• The 45th annual Appalachian Festival returns at Coney Island May 9-11. The festival was created by the Appalachian Community Development Association, which was founded by the Urban Appalachian Council and the Junior League.

• For more information, visit www.appalachianfestival.org.