The nearly 50,000 people who moved to Cincinnati from Appalachia seventy years ago found their new home very different from the one they left behind.
A rural, sparse area of rolling hills was replaced by busy city streets and cramped apartment buildings. East End, Over-the-Rhine, Camp Washington, South Fairmount, and Carthage were among the city neighborhoods where most of these migrants first lived. Many also found homes across the river in Newport and Covington.
Michael Maloney was among those who found a new home in Southwest Ohio, where jobs and opportunities were not available in his native Eastern Kentucky.
But the hoped-for opportunities fell short of expectations. Maloney and others founded the Urban Appalachian Council to help Appalachian migrants who moved to the city and struggled to gain a foothold in this seemingly foreign place.
As people spread out across neighborhoods, what kept them together was their geographic and cultural home. That continues today with the third, fourth and fifth generations of Appalachian migrants.
“We have a rich and thriving culture and we want to give the next generation the opportunity to celebrate their culture,” Maloney said.
The Lower Price Hill-based council, now known as the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. As later generations of Appalachians emerge in Cincinnati, the coalition is pushing for a larger mission. It’s about preserving – and celebrating – that history.
Mike Maloney is a longtime member of the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition, based in Lower Price Hill. Maloney, who lives in Kennedy Heights, grew up in Lee County, Kentucky. Lower Price, which covers less than a square mile and is about two miles from downtown Cincinnati, experienced a large influx of Appalachians in the 1940s and 1950s.
The need to organize Cincinnati’s Appalachian community
The founding of the Urban Appalachian Council in 1974 marked more than twenty years of informal organizing in neighborhoods.
Many of Cincinnati’s migrants lived in unsanitary, overcrowded tenements that were severely neglected by homeowners. Schools in predominantly Appalachia were under-resourced, and the few social programs were unknown to Cincinnati’s new residents.
Over the next few decades, founders Ernie Mynatt, Maloney, and others began working directly in neighborhoods as Appalachians began to emerge as a distinct demographic within the city. The group wanted to ensure that Urban Appalachians were not overlooked during the War on Poverty.
Core member Maureen Sullivan, former coalition chair and wife of the late Mynatt, said expanding education was an important goal at the time. Members established community-based GED centers and partnered with Cincinnati Community Schools to establish Oyler School in Lower Price Hill and Riverview Academy in the East End.
“There were just different things that could cause someone to put you on the back burner,” Sullivan said. “There were obviously a lot of people who just walked down the street and got the job, and a whole bunch of people who were really good and hard workers who were eventually able to move out of the area.”
The city later created a human rights ordinance recognizing Appalachians as a group legally protected from discrimination in housing and employment, thanks to the city’s lobbying efforts. Maloney’s research shows that Cincinnati is the only city in the country where Appalachian people are involved in human rights protections as outlined in the charter.
Lower Price Hill is less than a square mile in size and is about two miles from downtown Cincinnati. Some of the architecture dates from the mid-19th century. The community saw a large influx of Appalachians in the 1940s and 1950s. The Urban Appalachian Community Coalition, based in Community Matters, has been active in Lower Price Hill since the 1960s.
From the hills to the city, preserving the ancestral voices of Appalachia
Today, the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition also wants to preserve the stories of the elders who remember their days in the hills.
Omope Carter Daboiku, a native of Ironton, Ohio, affectionately known as Mama O, said she aspires to be a culture keeper. The 72-year-old professional storyteller shares her unique perspective as an Appalachian of mixed descent. She was recently honored by the National Association of Black Storytellers in its Black Appalachian Storytelling Fellowship.
Although Ironton was majority white, Daboiku said her community was diverse and eclectic. The historic Underground Railroad city has never had segregated schools. She remembers exchanging recipes with her Hungarian neighbors and the Lebanese who ran the fish market.
Today, she works with the Coalition on their Appalachian Guide to Cultural Resources. When she first started at the council in the 1990s, she provided cultural outreach by educating organizations about Appalachian culture. She was also instrumental in the founding of Oyler School and Riverview Academy.
Earth has always tied her to her home region. Growing food, gardening and spending time in green spaces always reminded her of where she came from.
“I’m here in this urban environment with people my age who don’t know how to grow food. And even if they choose to learn how, the motivation to do it is different because they don’t have a spirit-bound connection to the earth that makes the eating and interacting with worship,” she said.
It is now up to the elders to preserve the ancestral voices of the past, Daboiku said.
Today, the coalition is conducting a large-scale story-collecting project: “Kith and Kin: Appalachians and the Making of Cincinnati.” The goal is to engage Greater Cincinnatians of Appalachian descent in sharing not only their own stories, but those of the people who came before them.
Passing on traditions to new generations of Urban Appalachians and their neighbors
The challenges facing Cincinnati’s newer Appalachian generations are different than they were fifty years ago. Gentrification has changed the demographics and dynamics of neighborhoods across the city, and those historic Appalachian neighborhoods are not the same.
As second, third and fourth generations of Appalachian migrants emerge, the coalition wants to ensure their roots are not forgotten.
Hillbilly Highway, by Max Fraser, published in 2023, examines the Great Appalachian Migration from the Depressed South in the 1940s and 1950s to places like Lower Price Hill in search of work and a better life. The Urban Appalachian Community Coalition, based in Community Matters, has been active in Lower Price Hill since the 1960s. The book is available at the Frank Foster Library within Community Matters.
Core member Sherry Cook Stanforth works with the coalition to organize arts programs. Open mics for poetry and music, writing and storytelling workshops, retreats and school visits encourage youth to participate in Appalachia’s expressive arts traditions.
As historic Appalachians see changing demographics as immigrant populations grow in historic Appalachia, it’s about sharing these traditions with their neighbors as well.
“My own heart tells me that it is about the creativity, kinship and diversity of Urban Appalachian, and that extends not only in Greater Cincinnati as a consciousness and celebration, but also extends to neighboring migrant cultures and other families who may don’t have exactly that legacy,” Stanforth said.
And that is what the coalition is all about: keeping their heritage alive.
“It’s like you have a beautiful tapestry and each of the threads or parts is so alive and real,” Sullivan said. “I think that’s what Kith and Kin is about: getting the stories out of people so that we can really capture and show that kind of strength, that vibrancy, and that beauty.”
Omope Carter Daboiku is working with the coalition on the Appalachian Guide to Cultural Resources.
This article originally appeared on the Cincinnati Enquirer: Urban Appalachian Coalition of Cincinnati celebrates 50th anniversary
