Local folklorists and musicians to present at the Folklife Center

The Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center presents Black and White Together: Songs and Stories of Interracial Life and Work in the West Virginia Coalfields with folklorists and musicians Michael and Carrie Kline on Tuesday April 16 at 7 p.m. 

The Klines, through their enterprise Talking Across the Lines, have spent decades chronicling coalfield life and work through photos, oral histories and music. They will weave an evening of coal mining songs performed in high mountain harmony on two guitars and vocals, braided through short excerpts of the brand new Talking Across the Lines podcast series with the ethnographers' reflections. 

Over the past three years Michael and Carrie Kline have been recording stories of school integration—football, cheerleading, and the ongoing presence of coal mining—through the lens of Mount Hope, West Virginia in Fayette County. As Carrie Kline says, “This is a great opportunity for us to share some poignant stories in the songs, the oral histories, and in our own reflections on the meaning of the Hope project as we reflect on race and class in West Virginia.” 

This event is free and open to the public.

Talking Across the LinesMichael and Carrie KlineFrank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center