Celebrating a Forgotten Community

Poet and social entrepreneur Crystal Good's lineage in West Virginia is six generations deep. As a committed creative voice in the African American Appalachian community, she uses her poetry in the spirit of activism to bring dignity and awareness to a population often dismissed and ignored. Frank X. Walker, poet laureate of Kentucky, coined the term Affrilachian around the year 2000 to describe African Americans from the Appalachian region. In January, roughly 10,000 gallons of coal-processing chemical MCHM spilled into West Virginia's Elk River, contaminating the public water supply. The company responsible for the spillage neglected to report it promptly and 300,000 residents -- many of them African American -- have been affected. Amiri Barakas death coincided with the onset of the water crisis in West Virginia, and it reminded Good of a conversation the two had years ago.