“A judgment upon us all”: Appalachian poverty on the anniversary of “This Land Is Home to Me”

Here’s an anniversary that I point out with some bittersweetness. This week marks the 37th anniversary of the publication of This Land Is Home to Me, the historic pastoral letter “on powerlessness in Appalachia,” published on February 1, 1975, by the Catholic bishops of that region.

Rarely has any official statement of American Catholic bishops gained as much attention from the public and the media as this letter. It made many Americans aware of the astonishing conditions in which many of their fellow citizens lived and brought about far more intense pastoral efforts by the Church and its various organizations to address the myriad problems involved. February 1 should be marked annually as a sort of Appalachian Awareness Day within the American Catholic community — especially now that the spotlight has moved on to other things.

Having lived with my family for two years in the very heart of Appalachian poverty (Mingo County, West Virginia), I will mark this week’s anniversary first of all in the same spirit that I always recall the people I knew and lived with there: with warm admiration and joyful memories. What fine and strong people, who know the value of community and of family better than the people of any other place I have lived (and I’ve moved around more than many folks). What a beautiful, remarkable place.

Of the dozens and dozens of stories I could recount, let me mention just one brief and simple one. I’ll never forget attending Mass for the first time, on our first Sunday in Mingo County, in the little cinderblock church of the small Catholic parish in Williamson, West Virginia. After Mass we made our way with everyone else to the cafeteria of the parish’s tiny grade school (think of a room with space for no more than a dozen folding tables), where the community shared a brunch together. So many people made their way over to us to introduce themselves and welcome us and chat (though no public mention had been made of our being new arrivals) that one of my young kids said, “Dad, why is everyone telling us their name?” (Shall I contrast that with experiences at other Catholic parishes we’ve joined? It would be depressing.)

But I will also mark the letter’s anniversary with a sense of deep and bitter sadness, aware that poverty, devastation, and exploitation remain issues there still, nearly two generations later. There are many reasons for that, and anyone who tries to reduce them to one, to point the finger in a single direction, is clueless.

To be sure, many of the people themselves have a hand in this situation. The acceptance of dire poverty as the inevitable lot of vast numbers of people is far too widespread. Drug abuse is rampant and interest in education is often minimal. (Even some of the strongest, most admirable cultural characteristics tend to keep people from the kind of economic and personal growth that is commonplace to many Americans today. I’m thinking here of the deep personal rootedness in one’s family and in the land that can prevent people from considering college or professional training or building a career away from the holler that is their family’s home.)

But much of this is the aftermath and the persistence of over a century of iron-fisted exploitation by powerful people and businesses from both inside and outside the region. This continues today in

regional and local political leaders who insist against all evidence that reliance on coal production is the only way forward for local economies or that growing concern for the environmental devastation caused by fossil fuel use represents a “war on coal” and the people who mine it;
faraway company executives who bust unions and convince locals that the only thing that will keep their jobs secure is a willingess employ mining techniques that destroy the very mountains which make their land so stunningly beautiful and which cause dire health problems in their own families;
school administrators whose expectations of their students are next to nothing. (This latter circumstance played a big role in pushing my wife and I to decide that while the kids were young was probably not the best time to be living and working where we were.)

When I hear or read of blame for their circumstances placed squarely on the people who live in Appalachia, I think of the way some people speak of their embarrassment about black slaves of nineteenth century America because they did not rise up and fight their oppressors. It reveals, in my opinion, a failure to understand the reality of the situation. Indeed, there came a time, eventually, when the black community in America could and did demand respect for their dignity and equal rights and took the lead in shaping that desire into a reality. I hope central Appalachia will have a similar moment.

I also hope, in the meantime, that people who are poor, in Appalachia and elsewhere, will continue to have advocates among Catholic leaders like they did in the bishops of the region nearly two generations ago. In This Land Is Home to Me, those bishops insisted that “the truth of Appalachia is judgement upon us all.” After briefly recounting the development of Catholic social teaching, they said (in the distinctive poetic-prose style of this letter):

Thus,

there must be no doubt,

that we, who must speak the message

of God who summoned Moses,

and whose mouth was opened

in Jesus of Nazareth,

and who keeps the Spirit alive

on behalf of justice

for so many centuries,

can only become advocates of the poor.

This is not to be simplistic,

to see all in black and white,

to be ignorant of economics

and the contributions of other human sciences,

but in a profound sense

the choices are simple

and stark:

- death or life;

- injustice or justice;

- idolatry or the Living God.

We must choose life.

We must choose justice.

We must choose the Living God.

The full text (.pdf) of This Land Is Home to Me is here.