Context and Content: Researching West Virginia’s African American Coal Miners
Posted by: Guha Shankar
In recognition of African American History Month, this interview with research scholar LRenee, details her research into collections in the American Folklife Center Archive in January 2026. A poet, performer, and author, she received a Gerald E. and Corinne L. Parsons Fund Award (2024) to support her research on Black communities in coal mining and tobacco farming towns of Southwest Virginia and West Virginia. The main focus of LRenee’s research was the George Korson Collection of Songs of Bituminous Coal Miners and the Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project Collection, with specific attention to the songs of African American coal miners who were recorded by Korson in her West Virginia community, nearly a hundred years ago. The interview focuses on her research and her aims to incorporate her archival findings into new work including an interdisciplinary manuscript of poems and prose and storytelling performances for public audiences.
Posted in: African American History, Coal miner, Folk Music, George Korson, West Virginia
