For the last six years at SURJ, I have worked as an organizing director in Kentucky and helped launch multiple projects there. I wrote a viral piece, ‘Rednecks for Black Lives’ in the midst of the 2020 racial justice uprisings. And now, in partnership with SURJ, I am so thrilled to announce that today is the official release date of my book Song For a Hard-Hit People: A Memoir of Antiracist Solidarity From a Coal Miner’s Daughter from Haymarket Books.
It is a memoir and a strategy book for how we organize the white working class. But above all, it’s a declaration of love for my people — working-class Appalachians, Southerners, and rural folks — rooted in a deep political understanding that we have a critical role to play in how we all get free.
Appalachia is often framed as a place to escape from, where people are hateful, lazy, and bring tragedy upon ourselves — popularized by grifters like the Vice President. But the truth is, we have a powerful history of white Appalachians fighting alongside Black and Brown people, pushing back against the bosses and billionaires who gain power by using racism to divide us. Our history and our place has a lot to teach white people across the country about how to make solidarity something we do and not just something we say.
I wrote this story about my life to show that my commitment to antiracism is because I’m Appalachian, not in spite of it. I believe stories have the power to change our lives and to shake up deeply held beliefs so that new ideas and movements can take root and grow.
You can buy Song For a Hard-Hit People anywhere you buy books and audiobooks — and please shop local if possible, especially from my hometown bookstore CoffeeTree Books in Morehead, Kentucky.
Thank you for tuning in and connecting with me for the past five years at SURJ, and I hope you’ll come with me again now as my debut book makes its way in the world.
With love and solidarity forever,
Beth Howard
Showing Up for Racial Justice
PO Box 1376
Buffalo, NY 14205
United States