Title Black Huntington : an Appalachian story / Cicero M. Fain III

Published Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2019]

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Description 1 online resource Contents The African American experience in Cabell County, Virginia/West Virginia, 1825-1870 -- The "grapevine telegraph": post-emancipation black community and early black migrant influx, 1865-1871 -- Into the crucible: the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and the black industrial worker, 1870-1900 -- Community, race, and class: black settlement patterns, 1871-early 1900s -- Institutional development, public space, and political aspiration in early Huntington, 1870-early 1900s -- Spreading our wings: Afro-Huntingtonian progress during the era of "benevolent segregation." Summary "This project explores the experiences of black migrants and residents in Huntington, West Virginia, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Founded as a transshipment station by financier Collis P. Huntington for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in 1871, Huntington grew from a nondescript village to the state's most populated city, with the second largest black population in the state, by 1930. Its burgeoning economy and comparatively tolerant racial climate attracted increasing numbers of black migrants drawn to the socio-cultural and economic opportunities for African Americans not found further south: opportunities deriving both from railroad development and from Huntington's attendant rise as a commercial, manufacturing, and industrial center. Yet, by the early twentieth-century black aspirations became increasingly constrained as white Huntingtonians embraced and implemented the tenets of Jim Crowism. Fain documents the purposeful nature of black agency in the migratory process, the consolidation of Huntington's black working-class, and Afro-Huntingtonians' adaptive techniques and strategies--the strength of kin and social networks, gainful employment, institutional development, property acquisition, and legal challenges--used to confront the manifestations of segregation in an evolving urban-industrial southern environment. While Fain argues that race, not class, served as the primary operative feature of the Afro-Huntingtonian experience, he documents the development of class fissures within black Huntington, particularly as the rise of a professional class during the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century challenged the status quo of white Huntingtonians and complicated black aspirations"-- Provided by publisher Notes Significant Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--Ohio State University, 2009, titled Race, river, and the railroad : Black Huntington, West Virginia, 1871-1929 Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed Subject African Americans -- West Virginia -- Huntington -- History -- 19th century African Americans -- West Virginia -- Huntington -- History -- 20th century African Americans -- West Virginia -- Huntington -- Social conditions -- 19th century African Americans -- West Virginia -- Huntington -- Social conditions -- 20th century African Americans -- Migrations -- History -- 19th century African Americans -- Migrations -- History -- 20th century Migration, Internal -- United States -- History -- 19th century Migration, Internal -- United States -- History -- 20th century HISTORY -- United States -- State & Local -- South (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV) HISTORY -- General. African Americans African Americans -- Migrations African Americans -- Social conditions Migration, Internal United States West Virginia -- Huntington Genre/Form Electronic books History Form Electronic book LC no. 2019005745 ISBN 9780252051432 0252051432

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