'We’ve always been here.' High Museum adds Black Appalachian photography to collection

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Myra Haynes prays at Travis Chapel Methodist Church in Cleveland, Ga., Oct. 16, 2016.

Credit: Chris Aluka Berry

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Jack Pierce visits the land his grandfather, Jerome Pierce, bought after being from freed from slavery near Bays Mountain in Kingsport, Tenn., June 22, 2021.

Credit: Chris Aluka Berry

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“Remember me by the life I lived. Remember me for all the songs I’ve sung.” Cecil Dorsey grew up in White County, Ga., and remembers attending the Rock Springs Camp Meeting as a child, when his family owned land near the campground. His family has lived in this area of the Appalachian Mountains since 1853. He's photographed on his front porch, Oct. 23, 2018.

Credit: Chris Aluka Berry

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Angelo Allen, 3, pauses while playing with friends in the Texana community of Murphy, N.C., July 13, 2021. His ancestors have lived in the historic community for more than 150 years.

Credit: Chris Aluka Berry

Think of someone you would call Appalachian. Odds are good you thought of someone white. Photographer Chris Aluka Berry used to think that, too, before he learned about the centuries of African American history in the Appalachian South.

Images from his book documenting Black Appalachian communities, called Affrilachia: Testimonies, are already in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian. Now they have been added to the collection at Atlanta's High Museum. GPB's Amanda Andrews called Berry outside his North Carolina home to talk about his work. 

Amanda Andrews: You're documenting this history of African-American folks in Appalachia. What made you want to focus on that? 

Chris Aluka Berry: A lot of times folks look at me and they just think I'm a white dude. But I grew up — my father is Black and my mother is white and I grew up in Black neighborhoods. I've experienced a lot of racism growing up, from the cops pulling my dad over and thinking that I wasn't his child, to the KKK burning the cross in our front yard when I was a baby. A lot of different things. That's played a big part in my photography as far as stereotypes. But representation is extremely important to me. And to be completely honest with you, when I started on this project more than 10 years ago, I didn't know about the rich history and culture of African Americans in the Appalachian Mountains. I've been hiking and camping in these mountains, but I never saw Black folks. And then I found out that not only have there been Black communities all throughout these mountains, but that Africans came into these mountains in the 1500s with the Spaniards, long before the Scottish or Irish came. And when I started looking online, trying to find documentation — like, contemporary documentation — I couldn't find anything. It was like this huge gap in American history. Now, I say I couldn't find anything — I couldn’t find visual, I couldn't find photographers. I did find poets. I found the Affrilachian poets out of Kentucky. I found Dr. Bill Turner, who wrote the first book, Blacks in Appalachia, back in 1984. But as far as photographers trying to preserve this history, I couldn't find it. I could find all kinds of stuff on white folks, and I could find stuff on Native Americans, but — I was, so it was curiosity, and it just really intrigued me, and that's how, that’s kind of what got me on this path. 

Amanda Andrews: What has it been like to be on this journey of documenting Black folks in Appalachia and contributing to the larger preservation of their — their cultural existence? 

Chris Aluka Berry: It's been beautiful, Amanda. I tell you what, it's been beautiful. Every time I go into a new community, I would start at the church. Because the communities are small and I've seen the entire communities disappear. And I would always start at the church and I always felt at home at church because I grew up in this little, Black church in South Carolina, you know? So I'd start at the church. It was just a beautiful thing. People started inviting me to graduations and funerals and — and just, people just welcomed me in like family. 

Amanda Andrews: You said that you started in churches and I mean, I think that's really been a center point of so much of intergenerational, Black connections and history. What were some of the other places that you went to to connect with these people of, like, Affrilachia?

Chris Aluka Berry: So yeah, that's a great question. I started at the churches, but really, my whole reason for going to the church was to get access to go home with people. Like for me, when I'm trying to capture the essence of someone, I'm trying to tell their story. I wanna be in their homes, you know? And some people would let me stay with them. This one guy named Mark Pickens, he'd let me sleep at his house, you know? Because you wanna capture those early morning moments and those late evening moments. So, you know, intimacy is real, real high on the scale of the type of photography that I love to do. So spending time in people's homes, spending time, you know, I went hunting a bunch of times with folks. I photographed hog slaughtering. So, on the land, you know, because this project is all about the land. You know, I could have done this project in South Georgia. You and I could go out and do a project in South Carolina telling histories and stories that haven't been told, you know? But this project is — it's about the land, it's about this place, it is about the stereotypes of this place. Outside of that, I went to schools, of course, cemeteries, funeral homes, campmeetings. There's this old-timey campmeeting I've been photographing in North Georgia. It's in the book. It's been going on since 1886 under the same structure that was built by formerly enslaved people. It still stands to this day. And think about that: These weren't people that were architects. These weren't folks that went to Georgia Tech. You know what I'm saying? But these were people that built a structure out of hand-hewn logs more than 100 years ago, and it still stands to this day. To me, that speaks of the ingenuity and the intelligence of those folks. 

Amanda Andrews: You had mentioned that this project took — you've been doing it longer than you thought you would, right? You thought this would maybe be like a one-year turnaround, and now we've been going nine years longer than you originally thought. What was it that kept you coming back to be like, "OK, there's a little bit more I gotia do, I gotta go back out there, I'm not done yet," for all those years? 

Chris Aluka Berry: Really, the thing that made it take so long — and the thing I'm hoping won't happen on this second one — was funding. I did this whole book out of my own pocket. I had to raise $16,000. Even though University Press Kentucky published the book, they wanted to do — they were gonna just do this little small paperback book. I said, "No man, if we're gonna do it, we gotta do this right." This book is hardcover, 11 inch by 11 inch. I had to raise $16,000. That was extremely challenging. But not having the money, you know, I would sleep in my car. I'd go up there with like crackers and sardines, you know what I'm saying? And it was hard to turn down work, to go not make money. People welcomed me in, and now that I've done this work — the work, it is in the archives at the High Museum. There's a portfolio of 13 photos there. It is in archives at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. I've had people come to me and say, "I feel like I'm being seen. I feel people know, hey, we are here. We've always been here." I thought I was gonna work on this for like a year. And then it just, it's just grown and I've learned so much. But it's sad too, because like I say, communities have completely disappeared. And you know, when an elder dies, all of those stories go with them. So normally when I go into a community, I like to start with the elders first. But it's been a blessing to me.