The nearly 50,000 people who moved to Cincinnati from Appalachia 70 years ago found their new home was much different than the one they left behind.
A rural, sparse area of rolling hills was replaced with jam-packed city streets and tight quarters in apartment buildings. The East End, Over-the-Rhine, Camp Washington, South Fairmount and Carthage were among city neighborhoods first housing most of those migrants. 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 there were jobs and opportunities 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 moving to the city who were having trouble getting their footing in this seemingly foreign place.
While the people spanned neighborhoods, what held them together was their geographic and cultural home. That continues today with the third, fourth and fifth generations of Appalachian migrants.
“There’s a rich and thriving culture that we have, and we want to give the next generation a chance 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. Now with the later generations of Appalachians emerging in Cincinnati, the coalition is pushing for a bigger mission. It’s about preserving − and celebrating − that history.
Mike Maloney is a long-time member of the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition, located in Lower Price Hill. Maloney, who resides in Kennedy Heights, was raised in Lee County, Kentucky. Lower Price, which is less than a square mile and about two miles from downtown Cincinnati, saw a large influx of Appalachians in the 1940’s and 50’s.
The need to organize Cincinnati’s Appalachian community
The incorporation of the Urban Appalachian Council in 1974 marked more than 20 years of informal organizing in the neighborhoods.
Many of Cincinnati’s migrants lived in unsanitary, overcrowded tenements that were badly neglected by landlords. Schools in predominantly Appalachian neighborhoods were under-resourced, and the few social programs were unknown to the new Cincinnati residents.
Over the subsequent decades, founding members Ernie Mynatt, Maloney and others began working directly in neighborhoods as Appalachian people began to emerge as a distinct demographic group within the city. The group wanted to ensure Urban Appalachians weren’t overlooked during the War on Poverty.
Core member Maureen Sullivan, former coalition president and wife of the late Mynatt, said expanding education was a key goal at the time. Members created community-based GED centers, and worked with Cincinnati Community Schools to create Oyler School in Lower Price Hill and Riverview Academy in the East End.
“There were just different things that maybe would cause a person to put you on the back burner,” Sullivan said. “There were, obviously, are a lot of people who just walked down the street and got the job, and a whole, whole lot of people who were really good and hard workers who were eventually able to move out of the neighborhood.”
The city later crafted a Human Rights Ordinance that recognizes Appalachians as a group legally protected from discrimination in housing and employment, thanks to the council’s advocacy work. Maloney’s research indicates Cincinnati is the only city in the nation that includes Appalachian people in human rights protections outlined in its charter.
Lower Price Hill is less than a square mile and located about two miles from downtown Cincinnati. Some of the architecture dates back to the mid-1800s. The community saw a large influx of Appalachians in the 1940s and ’50s. The Urban Appalachian Community Coalition, located in Community Matters, has been active in Lower Price Hill since the 1960s.
From the hills to the city, preserving ancestral voices of Appalachia
These days, the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition also aims to preserve the stories of the elders who remember their days in the hills.
Ironton, Ohio native Omope Carter Daboiku, affectionately known as Mama O, said she strives to be a culture keeper. The 72-year-old professional storyteller shares her unique perspective as an Appalachian of mixed ancestry. Most recently she was honored by the National Association of Black Storytellers in its Black Appalachian Storytelling Fellowship.
Although Ironton was mostly white, Daboiku said her community was diverse and eclectic. The historical Underground Railroad town never had segregated schools. She recalls swapping recipes with her Hungarian neighbors and the Lebanese people that ran the fish market.
Today, she works with the coalition on their Appalachian cultural resource directory. When she first started with the council in the 1990s, she conducted cultural outreach by educating organizations about Appalachian culture. She was also instrumental in founding Oyler School and Riverview Academy.
The earth has always bound her to her home region. Growing food, gardening, and spending time in green spaces always reminded her of where she came from.
“I find myself here in this urban environment with people my age who don’t know how to grow food. And even when they choose to learn how, the motivation for doing it is different, because they don’t have a spirit-bound connection to the earth that makes the food and interaction like worship,” she said.
It’s now up to the elders to preserve the ancestral voices of the past, Daboiku said.
Today, the coalition is undertaking a massive story story-gathering project, “Kith and Kin: Appalachians and the Making of Cincinnati.” It aims to engage Greater Cincinnatians of Appalachian descent to share not only their own stories, but those of the people that came before them.
Passing traditions to new generations of Urban Appalachians and their neighbors
Challenges for the newer Appalachian generations of Cincinnati are different than they were 50 years ago. Gentrification has changed neighborhood demographics and dynamics throughout the city, and those historical Appalachian neighborhoods aren’t the same.
Now that the second, third and fourth generations of Appalachian migrants are emerging, the coalition wants to ensure their roots aren’t forgotten.
Hillbilly Highway, by Max Fraser, published in 2023, explores the large migration of Appalachians from the depressed south in the 1940s and ’50s to places like Lower Price Hill, seeking work and a better life. The Urban Appalachian Community Coalition, located in Community Matters, has been active in Lower Price Hill since the 1960s. The book is available at the Frank Foster Library inside Community Matters.
Core member Sherry Cook Stanforth works with the coalition to organize arts programs. Poetry and music open mics, songwriting and storytelling workshops, retreats, and school visits encourage young people to engage in the expressive art traditions of Appalachia.
As the historically Appalachian neighborhoods see changing demographics as immigrant populations grow in historically Appalachian areas, it’s about sharing those traditions with their neighbors, too.
“My own heart tells me it’s about Urban Appalachian creativity, kinship and diversity, and that extends not only throughout Greater Cincinnati as an awareness and celebration, but it also extends to neighboring migration cultures and other families who may not have that exact heritage,” Stanforth said.
And that’s what the coalition is all about: keeping their heritage alive.
“It’s like if you have a beautiful tapestry and each of the threads or sections are so vibrant and real,” Sullivan said. “I think that’s what Kith and Kin is about – to draw the stories out of people so we can begin to really capture and showcase that kind of strength, that vibrancy, that beauty.”
Omope Carter Daboiku works with the coalition on its Appalachian cultural resource directory.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Urban Appalachian Coalition of Cincinnati celebrates 50th anniversary