The 25th Annual Southern Appalachian Labor School Solidarity Cultural Festival will consist of a Dinner and Premiere Film showing of “After Coal” at 5:30 p.m. on July 12, 2016 at the Historic Oak Hill School in Oak Hill, West Virginia. “After Coal” profiles inspiring individuals who are building a new future in the Appalachian coalfields and South Wales. Music plays a major role in this documentary essay, produced at Appalachian State University by faculty member/film maker Tom Hansell who once was with Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky. The film has fiscal sponsorship from the Southern Appalachian Labor School, and received financial support from the Chorus Foundation, United States Artists, and the West Virginia Humanities Council. The roots of the film goes back several decades when Appalachian scholar Helen Lewis, SALS co-founder David Greene, and others in a small group went to Wales when coal mines were being shuttered. In essence, the […]

by Tanya Bernice Turner In June of 2016, we not only celebrated the 30th Anniversary of Seedtime on the Cumberland, we welcomed (or croeso in Welsh) to Whitesburg, friends from very familiar looking communities in South Wales. Last summer my best friend Elizabeth and I had one of those rare, life-changing chances to visit another country, not as mere tourists, but as guests in the homes of musicians, artists, community leaders, and members of British Parliament. After days of travel on planes, trains, and buses from Whitesburg to Wales, we found ourselves rolling through hills that looked like home. Our adventure took us to historical churches turned community theaters, kitchen tables filled with tea cups and Welsh cakes, and even an outdoor Welsh culture festival, Tafwyl, inside the walls of Cardiff Castle. Tafwyl featured food, art, amazing local musicians performing both traditional and modern Welsh music, and was free to […]