First-Class People & Change Agents

What's Going on Around WestVirginiaVille | feb7.2020

Feb 08, 2021

Welcome. If not subscribed, receive a twice-monthly heads-up on stories & multimedia about West Virginia life, news & culture at: westvirginiaville.substack.com. Or mash the button below. Be well, stay safe. Mask up! Douglas John Imbrogno, editor & co-founder

Editor’s Note

Here are three stories in WestVirginiaVille’s Black History Month coverage:

BLACK HISTORY 1 | 'I was first-class in my own mind"

Here’s how a kid named Joe Turner from West Virginia coal mine country got jazzed by legendary ace pilot and West Virginia native Chuck Yeager, plus a boyhood friend who went on to become a war hero —and found his own way by heading straight into the sky. A reprint of my 2019 story on the occasion of Joe's induction into the WV Aviation Hall of Fame, followed by an excerpt from a memoir of his growing up in West Virginia. | READ ON

BLACK HISTORY 2 | ‘Rosa Parks’ feet did not hurt’

Rosa Parks was neither tired, frail, nor old when she she helped crack open a new chapter in the American Civil Rights Movement, by refusing to move to the back of a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. West Virginia artist Sassa Wilkes painted the icon’s face as part of her “100 Badass Women” recent portrait series. She rains fire on the deliberate misreading of that day by white folks of this provocation by an activist who knew exactly what she was doing. The 2-minute excerpt below is from a 20-minute WestVirginiaVille documentary on Sassa’s tour-de-force portraits of “badass women” in history and current times. The doc was just added to the Phoenix Film Festival in Toronto. | VIEW IT FULL LENGTH AT THIS LINK: “THE FEMALE GAZE: How a West Virginia Artist Captured 100 Badass Women”

CLICK TO VIEW VIDEO: A WestVirginiaVille.com original video, AStoryIsTheThing.com production

BLACK HISTORY 3 | ‘An Idea Whose Time Had Come’

When the Kanawha County Board of Education stripped the name of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson off a middle school in a predominantly Black neighborhood in West Virginia's capital city in 2020, the name change revealed the long, troubled history of institutional racism in America. View video below. | SEE TRANSCRIPT AND STUDY GUIDES AT THIS LINK

CLICK TO VIEW VIDEO: A WestVirginiaVille.com original video.

COMING UP: “Be the Change” Music Video

WestVirginiaVille’s Chief Videographer Bobby Lee Messer and I have been scooting about the region, shooting a music video of a wonderful new song, “Be the Change.” It’s by beloved West Virginia singer-songwriter Ron Sowell, leader of the “Mountain Stage” band. It’s a timely tune. Be sure you’re subscribed to this newsletter for news of when the video drops (in a week or so).

Below are images from various shoots. At lower right, Ron walks past the side of one of the famous “Ouch” barn signs which dot the America’s landscape, this one in Mason County WV. The band (lower left) is seen in a shot at Unity in Charleston WV, clouded up with aromatic sage smoke, to make band members stand out in footage we’ll turn black-and-white in post-production. Plus, we all smelled good afterward. (Right to left) Ammed Solomon; Ron; John Ingram; Ryan Kennedy; and Jeff Haught (sitting in on keys for the photo shoot).

Picture This | 1

Here’s a shot of a flotilla (a squad? A convoy? A mess of…) ducks which photographer Rafael Barker captured out for a winter’s float recently on the Kanawha River in downtown Charleston WV.

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Picture This | 2

It’s hard to take photographs of snow. It helps when someone strolls by in the distance beneath a black-and-white umbrella, in the midst of a snowsquall in Barboursville city park. | WestVirginiaVille.com photo.