ISSUED: 11 February 2020
MEDIA CONTACT: Valerie Owens
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV — Shepherd University’s Center for Appalachian Studies and Communities is hosting the second in the series of Black History programs with Dr. Cicero Fain III discussing his book, “Black Huntington, An Appalachian Story,” on Friday, February 28, at 7 p.m. at the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education. The event, which will be hosted by Dr. Benjamin Bankhurst, assistant professor of history, is free and open to the public.
Fain, who is the third-generation in his family from Huntington, illuminates in the book the unique cultural identity and dynamic sense of accomplishment and purpose that transformed African American life in Huntington. Using interviews and untapped archival materials, Fain details the rise and consolidation of the black working class as it pursued, then fulfilled, its aspirations. He also reveals how African Americans developed a host of strategies—strong kin and social networks, institutional development, property ownership, and legal challenges—to defend their gains in the face of the white status quo.
Fain is a professor of history at the College of Southern Maryland. “Black Huntington, An Appalachian Story,” published by the University Press of Illinois, is Fain’s first book. He is recognized as an authority on African American and Appalachian history and has published in scholarly journals and presented at an array of conferences. Fain is currently researching a book that expands his published piece in Ohio Valley History, “Buffalo Soldier, Deserter, Criminal: The Remarkably Complicated Life of Charles Ringo.”
For more information, contact Dr. Sylvia Bailey Shurbutt, director of Shepherd University Center for Appalachian Studies and Communities, at sshurbut@shepherd.edu.
— 30 —
