As adults decide the future of Stonewall Jackson Middle School's name at meeting Monday, July 6, 2020, we visited a playground in Charleston WV to find out what a group of students thought about the idea.
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POINTS of VIEW | ‘If You’re Silent About Your Pain’
A LETTER TO NEUTRAL COLLEAGUES: "I realize you may be actually confused about whether blacks are offended or feel pain from reminders of that dark period. Zora Neale Neale Hurston once said: "If you're silent about your pain, they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it." So, I will clarify that we are offended. We are in pain."
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‘ALEXANDRIA SPEAKS’: Why Stonewall Jackson Middle School Needs a New Name
Why rename a school long named for a Confederate general? Watch a 13-year-old student in Charleston WV tell why in an impassioned plea to the adults considering whether to rename her Stonewall Jackson Middle School.
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NATUREGRAM 1 | Sheltering-in-Nature during a Pandemic
Could you use some Canadian geese, chuckling water and scenes of nature not trying to sell you something? Here is a WestVirginiaVille Public Service Mental Health Pandemic Video.
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READINGS | Ruminations of a Coal Miner’s Ex-wife
"Living here in Southern WV is very much like not being able to see the forest for the trees. So much of what went wrong in my marriage went wrong because my then-husband was being exploited and made to think that he had the good life. No—he was made to think he had the best life. He couldn’t say no."
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STRIKE THIS WAY: A Crowdsourced Look at the 2018 WV Teacher’s Strike
We hereby enter these videos into the Multimedia Historical Records of the Great State of WestVirginiaVille. How Mitch got Ditched: a crowdsourced look at the beginnings of a purge.
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POINTS of VIEW: ‘What Is Their Cause, Has to be My Cause’
Suddenly, what is of importance only to people of color is now of utmost of importance to this person of white privilege. ~ Rabbi Victor Urecki
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SONGS of WEST VIRGINIA | “I Know I’m Home”
The tune "I Know I'm Home" kicks off a new WestVirginiaVille series showcasing original "Songs of West Virginia." The tune was co-written by Al Smith and Ron Sowell, the leader of the "Mountain Stage" band. Sowell was a wandering minstrel who landed here and found some harmony. And stayed for good.
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Prehistoric W.Va. was not an uninhabited hunting ground
You don't have to live long in West Virginia before you hear that the land used to be a "hunting ground" for Native Americans. The actual history is more vibrant and complex, as the region was more likely "an Interaction Zone" or melting pot of native ethnicities, languages, and technology.
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UNMASKED! |A Pandemic Photo Project
Yes, of course you should still be wearing a mask in public. A second wave of infections? We're not even through the first. Here are some masked inspirations—followed by their unmasked selves.
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PODCAST | A Coal River Homeless Camp Tale of Survival
Homelessness is something most people see on a regular basis here in West Virginia. But what about the homelessness we don't see? Kyle Vass takes us into a St. Albans homeless camp at the heart of community fight over their riverside existence.
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POETICS| An Almost Heaven & James Brown Upbringing
I was raised on Almost Heaven and Hee Haw/Taught to love God and the UMWA/I was an odd little Black girl/Growing up in the coalfields of West Virginia ...
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A Public Service Announcement from the Juggling Community
We hereby present to you "A Juggler's Guide to Covid-19," as we believe this will be the first—and the last —of those you will see during the current pandemic.
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EDITOR’S NOTEPAD: Mitch Gets Moved & WV Can’t Wait Begins a Movement
By Jove, West Virginia voters did indeed "Move Mitch, Get Out the Way." Meanwhile, the WV Can't Wait campaign of Stephen Smith came up short, but the start of its "movement" did not.
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DRIVE-BY LOVE: Portrait of a Pop-Up Pride and Black Lives Matter Parade
There were balloons and streamers. There were rainbow flags. And lots of honks. A video/photographic portrait of a literally moving Pride and Black Lives Matter parade in Huntington WV on june6.2020
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STEPHEN SMITH | Part 1: On His Long-Distance, Grass-roots Run for Governor
As part of a new WestVirginiaVille series called, "Conversations," we sit down with 2020 West Virginia gubernatorial Democratic candidate Stephen Smith as he winds down a two-year, grass-roots campaign to upend the long reign of what his campaign dubs the "good old boy network" in state governance.
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STEPHEN SMITH | Part 2: Why We Endorse Stephen Smith for WV Governor
Why WestVirginiaVille is holding up its small megaphone with a big message: West Virginia is in sore need of systemic change. And Stephen Smith and his campaign are the only ones who seems to have thought deeply about how to get that ball rolling.
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DON WEST | Part 2: “May It Be So”
Long before it became fashionable, Don West fought the passive hillbilly stereotype by pointing to mountain labor’s traditions of struggle and solidarity.
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DON WEST | Part 1: Not An Easy Path
Don West was not a warm and fuzzy person or "a creator of comfort. He was a ceator of action." It could be uncomfortable, but the labor activist and poet left a legacy to be explored in a WVPB documentary that debuts Sunday, June 7, 2020
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HAPPY MOONSHINE DAY |Part 2: “The Plum”
We call it The Plum. It’s the prettiest moonshine we make. The shine is made from my PawPaw’s PawPaw’s recipe in a copper still just like it was a hundred years ago. In each jar, we put 13 sweet plums from the trees my great-aunt planted after the ’37 flood...
