Appalachian Caravan

Women of Appalachia are as diverse as the geography that defines them. They are rural and urban; African, European, and Native American; lesbian and straight; young and old; professional and unemployed. Their lives are marked by welfare checks and glass ceilings, isolation and overcrowding, immense pain and Christ-like joy.

The Appalachian Women’s Alliance is a coalition of women leaders from communities in Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Ohio who are organizing to improve the situation of women in the region. This past spring, the Appalachian Women’s Alliance organized a caravan of women who traveled together for two weeks through Appalachia. In each location they connected with local women and networked with organizations that address violence against women and community development issues.

"We wanted to go to where women are," said Meredith Dean, the regional coordinator of the Appalachian Women’s Alliance. "We could have organized a conference and probably have gotten maybe 200 women, but because we went out to meet women where they are, we reached more than 1,000. These women face so many barriers—including geographical, racial, and class—and the caravan was a visible, tangible symbol that we can cross those barriers.

"The vision going into the caravan was to address the broader issues around violence against women, encompassing economic, political, cultural, physical, environmental, psychological, and spiritual violence," Dean said. "We wanted to show how all of these are integrated in women’s understanding of their lives. We found that physical violence is the starting place for discussion because that is where women are getting beaten and killed.

"We began to wonder if we could go through two weeks of hearing about physical violence—but accompanying the pain was an amazing amount of joy," Dean said. "With all the talk of domestic violence, it wasn’t as if there was a lot of anger left open. All along the caravan was an immense celebration and joy for these women’s lives."

THE CARAVAN WAS welcomed by everything from police escorts in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Indian fry bread at a Cherokee community in North Carolina. Cincinnati mayor Roxanne Quall declared the day of their visit Appalachian Women’s Alliance Day. Throughout the two weeks, women enjoyed coffeehouses, musical entertainment by other women, and dramatic presentations. The caravan visited some isolated communities, reaching only one or two women, and also held rallies in other places that drew several hundred people.

In Berea, Kentucky, local women joined the caravan members in a special reading from selected authors of the Appalachian Women’s Journal, another project by the Alliance. The journal was created for women to share their thoughts and experiences in order to gain strength from each other and to speak to the rest of the world in their own words. A discussion with authors on understanding yourself as a writer followed the reading.

"Many of these women never thought that something they would say would be important for others to hear," Dean said. "For women to see their work published and that people connect with it is very empowering."

The Appalachian Women’s Alliance was named as such in 1992, but grew out of work done by women in Appalachia over the last decade. Despite the fundamental role women in Appalachia play in their communities, when development funds began to come to Appalachia in the 1960s and ’70s, they came from male-dominated institutions, including the church, and were given to other male-dominated development organizations in Appalachia, Dean said. But it was local women working at the grassroots who were the heart and soul of community development.

As women began talking to each other and discovering similar struggles, they came together in smaller groups and support networks. As they built connections, some women developed the sense that they should broaden their efforts even further. The Alliance was formed, and the idea for the caravan came from one of their initial brainstorming sessions.

The possibility of a second caravan is currently being discussed. For more information on the Alliance, send your name, address, and phone number to the Appalachian Women’s Alliance, 1035 Cambria St., Christiansburg, VA 24073; or call (703) 381-5033. For a copy of the Appalachian Women’s Journal, include $6. —Jill Carroll Lafferty