Gone Home: Race and Roots through Appalachia by Karida L. Brown

Great to have a paperback edition of this book, confirming not only its significance in the field of sociology, but also its appeal to general readers, reinforced by the fact that it was recognized by six book awards! Three words in the sub-title are crucial. “Race” tips you off that this is a book about African Americans. “Roots” confirms the focus on individuals coming to grips with where their people are from. Arguably the most important word is “through.” Based on 150 interviews with Black people who moved away from Lynch and Benham, coal towns in Harlan County, Kentucky, his book illuminates the mostly previously ignored fact that the Great Migration was not just South to North, but often South to Appalachia, and then on to the North. “Gone Home is a migrating portrait of black families who moved from Alabama plantations to Kentucky coalfields, and from there to cities across the nation. Displaced by industrial decline, these families were forced to redefine the meaning of home an