Jeff Biggers chronicles cultural innovators

By Ray Zimmerman

Appalachia needs no defense – it needs more defenders,” begins Jeff Biggers’ book, “The United States of Appalachia.” I was privileged to see Biggers speak with eloquence and passion at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga and interview him during his book signing tour of 2006.
Biggers believes in the human connection to the land. He says our music, writing and culture depend upon that connection. His own connection to the land is rooted in a 200 year-old cabin and a family cemetery lost to the ravages of King Coal.
Biggers’ book was 20 years in the making. During that time, he worked as a freelance writer and radio correspondent for various news organizations, both in the United States and abroad. Along the way, he edited “No Lonesome Road,” the story of Don West - poet, labor organizer, preacher, school superintendent and co-founder of the Highlander Folk School. West was near the end of a long life when Biggers met him, and he credits West as having a major influence on his own life and writing.
“The United States of Appalachia” followed close on the heels of “No Lonesome Road.” In this volume Biggers asserts that many of our American institutions began in Appalachia. The diverse group of writers he celebrates as Appalachian includes Pearl S. Buck, Cormack McCarthy, Willa Cather, Thomas Wolfe, Rebecca Harding Davis, James Sill and Edward Abbey. He also chronicles the innovations of several publishers, including Adolph Ochs of Chattanooga Times and New York Times fame.
Biggers points to the example set by Rosa Parks of the civil rights movement as one influenced by Appalachian innovators. Before refusing to give up her seat on a bus, Parks had attended a seminar at the Highlander Folk School of Tennessee, which was instrumental in training the workers of the Civil Rights Movement.
Although Biggers tends to wax poetic about the contributions of Appalachians to America’s growth and development, he does not gloss over the dangers posed by the mining economy, such as the Buffalo Creek mining disaster of 1972. An illegal earthen dam holding back a coal slurry pond washed out, resulting in a flood that killed 125 people, injured 1,100 and left 4,000 homeless. Biggers stated the mining companies have created hundreds of coal slurry ponds like the one that caused the Buffalo Creek flood. He knows people in the coalfields brace themselves for such disasters, which could happen in any wet, rainy year. As a journalist and a cultural historian, Biggers believes the issue of mountaintop removal must leave the local and regional consciousness and become a national issue before it can be seriously addressed.
Biggers believes Appalachia will continue to be a crossroads of innovators who can move America forward. “The people are an inspiration to me.”
Biggers returned to Chattanooga March 24 for another book signing. “The United States of Appalachia” has now been issued in paperback, and his new book, “In the Sierra Madre,” is available hardbound. It will be released in paperback later this year.
“In the Sierra Madre” chronicles the year Biggers spent living and working with the Raramuri people of Mexico’s Copper Canyon country. Biggers learned the story of these people by working with them in the fields, on wood cutting expeditions and on indigenous construction sites. He also joined local musicians at celebrations where he introduced them to his banjo, joined in as an accompanist to their music and entertained them with Appalachian tunes.
Biggers promotes his books in readings and book signings throughout the nation. His efforts will succeed in an era when that burden of promotion largely falls on the author. Meanwhile, he is working on a book documenting time spent living in India.

Selected Works of Jeff Biggers

Don West: No Lonesome Road
University of Illinois Press, 2004
Edited by Jeff Biggers and George Brosi
Don West sprang from a southern mountain family to become a populist poet, and teacher, a minister and a labor organizer. With Myles Horton he co-founded the Highlander Folk School and worked throughout his life for the rights of the poor. He was also an early spokesperson for civil rights. In the introduction, Biggers gives a brief biographical sketch tracing the education and history of West, a neglected literary voice of the south. He compares West to the northern populist poet Carl Sandburg, and credits West as a major influence on his own writing.

The United States of Appalachia: How Southern Mountaineers Brought Independence, Culture and Enlightenment to America
Shoemaker & Hoard, 2006
Biggers traces the contributions of southern mountain people to the American Revolution, the publishing industry, the desegregation movement, American Indian rights and cultural growth of the nation. His true stories place Appalachian people in the vanguard of the nation’s development.

In the Sierra Madre
University of Illinois Press, 2006
This book is based on the author’s one-year sojourn in the Sierra Madre. He spent the time living and working with the Raramuri people of Mexico’s Copper Canyon country, the country which was also the setting of the 1948 film, “Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” starring Humphrey Bogart and directed by John Huston. It was based on the novel with the same title, written by the mysterious B. Traven.
Aside from documenting the Raramuri culture in the village Mawichi, Biggers included descriptions of the villagers’ interaction with Spanish speaking Mexicans, missionaries, and tourists. He also describes the introduction of Raramuri musicians there to his banjo and some Appalachian tunes. The narrative is dense with history, natural history and a view of American-Mexican diplomacy and politics.