When All God’s Children Get Together: A Celebration of the Lives and Music of African American People in Far Western North Carolina

Mention “mountain people” to most Americans, and they conjure up an image of Whites living in rural or small-town communities that dot the Appalachians—the people Dolly Parton calls her own.

They might even recall the Cherokee and other Native people whose ancestors inhabited the land thousands of years before the Whites arrived.

But chances are, they have no idea that African Americans have long been present in the region.

In one of the first volumes to reveal this history, WHEN ALL GOD’s CHILDREN GET TOGETHER: A CELEBRATION OF THE LIVES AND MUSIC OF AFRICAN AMERICAN PEOPLE IN FAR WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA, expands our references and documents the lives of many African Americans who have lived since the mid-nineteenth century in the seven westernmost counties of North Carolina, home to some of the most spectacular and storied mountain country in America.

Through its literary portraits, historical narratives and hundreds of photographs, this volume vividly captures the people and places that have constituted the African American presence in the region, as it describes the institutions, customs, challenges, and triumphs in its subjects’ lives.

Author Ann Miller Woodford, a native of Andrews, North Carolina, began this book when she recognized that the stories her father told throughout his life about the people and places in the region deserved to be captured for posterity.

Her work soon expanded over a seven-year period to celebrate the history of many other hardworking but often maligned or overlooked Blacks whose contributions helped develop the social, economic, and spiritual fabric of the region.

Despite the destruction of most records and almost all buildings that once exhibited their existence, plus the death of so many Black elders—the most knowledgeable oral historians—WHEN ALL GOD’S CHILDREN GET TOGETHER vividly bears witness to the presence and significance of the Black community of far western North Carolina.