African American Miners and Migrants
The EASTERN KENTUCKY SOCIAL CLUB

Thomas E. Wagner (Author), Philip J. Obermiller (Author), William H Turner (Afterword by)

9780252071645

Paperback / softback, published 9 February 2004

176 pages, 40 black & white photographs, 2 line drawings
21.6 x 14 x 1.4 cm, 0.254 kg

Thomas E. Wagner and Phillip J. Obermiller's African American Miners and Migrants documents the lives of Eastern Kentucky Social Club (EKSC) members, a group of black Appalachians who left the eastern Kentucky coalfields and their coal company hometowns in Harlan County.

Bound together by segregation, the inherent dangers of mining, and coal company paternalism, it might seem that black miners and mountaineers would be eager to forget their past. Instead, members of the EKSC have chosen to celebrate their Harlan County roots. African American Miners and Migrants uses historical and archival research and extensive personal interviews to explore their reasons and the ties that still bind them to eastern Kentucky. The book also examines life in the model coal towns of Benham and Lynch in the context of Progressive Era policies, the practice of welfare capitalism, and the contemporary national trend of building corporate towns and planned communities.

Preface   ix

1. Democracy Challenged: Demography, Technology, and Democratic Possibilities
Brian J. Gaines and Peter F. Nardulli   1

Part I: Social Heterogeneity and Democracy: Challenges and Opportunities
2. Problems of Democratic Transition in Divided Societies
Jack Snyder   11
3. Citizens, Identities and Democratic Dialogues: Opportunities and Challenges of Diverse Societies
Mark Q. Sawyer   33
4. Democracy, Diversity, and Leadership
Paul M. Sniderman   51
5. Electoral Engineering, Social Cleavages, and Democracy
Bernard Grofman and Jon Fraenkel   71

Part II: Technology and Democracy: Mass-Elite Linkages in the Twenty-first Century
6. Technological Advances and Individual Liberties: Privacy and the Reach of the State in the Twenty-first Century
Wayne V. McIntosh and Stephen A. Simon   105
7. Engineering Consent: The Persistence of a Problematic Communication Regime
W. Lance Bennett   131
8. The Internet and Political Fragmentation
Bruce Bimber   155

Contributors   171
Index   175