To Live Here, You Have to Fight: How Women Led Appalachian Movements for Social Justice

286 Pages·2019·3.39 MB·English

by  Jessica Wilkerson

To Live Here, You Have to Fight
THE WORKING CLASS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Editorial Advisors
James R. Barrett, Julie Greene, William P. Jones, Alice Kessler-Harris, and Nelson Lichtenstein
A list of books in the series appears at the end of this book.
To Live Here,
You Have to Fight
How Women Led
Appalachian Movements
for Social Justice
JESSICA WILKERSON
Publication supported by a grant from the Howard D.
and Marjorie I. Brooks Fund for Progressive Thought.
© 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Wilkerson, Jessica, 1981– author.
Title: To live here, you have to fight: how women led Appalachian movements for
social justice / Jessica Wilkerson.
Description: [Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2019] | Series: The working
class in American history | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018032364| ISBN 9780252042188 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN
9780252083907 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Women—Political activity
—Appalachian Region, Southern. | Social action—Appalachian Region,
Southern. | Appalachian Region, Southern—Social conditions—20th century.
Classification: LCC HQ1236.5.A6 .W55 2019 | DDC 320.082/0975—dc23 LC
record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018032364
Ebook ISBN 978-0-252-05092-3
Cover illustration by Katie Ries
Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living.
Mary Harris “Mother” Jones
To stay here, you’re going to have to fight like hell.
Bessie Smith Gayheart
Contents
Acknowledgments
Acronyms
Introduction
1. The Political and Gender Economy of the Mountain
South, 1900–1964
2. “I Was Always Interested in People’s Welfare”: Bringing
the War on Poverty to Kentucky
3. “In the Eyes of the Poor, the Black, the Youth”: Poverty
Politics in Appalachia
4. March for Survival: The Appalachian Welfare Rights
Movement
5. “The Best Care in History”: Interdependence and the
Community Health Movement
6. “I’m Fighting for My Own Children That I’m Raising
Up”: Women, Labor, and Protest in Harlan County
7. “Nothing Worse than Being Poor and a Woman”:
Feminism in the Mountain South
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index