Song for a Hard-Hit People: A Memoir of Antiracist Solidarity from a Coal Miner’s Daughter

Political organizer Howard connects her Appalachian upbringing to her career in social justice, in this deeply felt debut. Born in Kentucky, Howard saw her early years scarred by addiction, domestic violence, and economic precarity. But she also recalls her father sharing his love of books with her, as well as his fierce sense of indignation at the rich’s exploitation of the poor. While working as an adjunct women’s studies professor at Eastern Kentucky University in 2006, Howard attended an orientation hosted by a community organizing network to recruit new members. She discovered her knack for organizing during an assignment in Jacksonville, Fla., where she helped Black and Latino churches form an interfaith coalition. After returning to Kentucky, she worked on campaigns to raise Louisville’s minimum wage and restore voting rights to felons. Frustrated by her employers’ hesitancy to grapple with the racial elements of the injustices they addressed, Howard began the painful process of reckoning with the dark forces that shaped her environment, including the spread of slavery and the corporate takeover of family farms. While Howard’s empathetic account stands in welcome contrast to caricatures of Appalachian life, of particular note is her unwillingness to let the gender and racial disparities endemic to the region slide. The result is a refreshing, clear-eyed chronicle of a political awakening. (Apr.)