Writing & Editing

Among the first to combine interests in the fields of African American and Appalachian Studies, Turner has published extensively in national newspapers, academic journals, and books on the black experience in Appalachia. His essays have been published in the Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times and dozens of African American newspapers, e.g., the Winston-Salem Chronicle.

Selected Works

WV University Press issues promo for upcoming memoir - APPALACHIA / RACE / SNEAK PEEK Celebrating Black History Month in Appalachia: An early look at William Turner’s Harlan Renaissance

Wendell Berry’s defense of mural on UK campus shows “Hidden Wound” was superficial after all (Lexington Herald Leader, 2020)

Commentary: Black Lives Matter at the Mountaintops in My Old Kentucky Home (The Daily Yonder, 2020)

“Black Hillbillies have no time for elegies,” in Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy (Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll, eds., West Virginia University Press, 2019)  

"William H. Turner honors the rich history of black Appalachian communities." - Leticia Montgomery-Rodgers

The Canaries in the Coal Mine Were Black (Now & Then: The Appalachian Magazine, 2016)

Another Take on Hillbilly Elegy (Daily Yonder, 2016)

Sale of Ebony and Jet Photos Like Eating the Seed Corn (Huffpost, 2015)

Mississippi, Again! (The Chronicle, 2013)

Hallowed Hills (Lexington Herald-Leader, 2011)

African American Miners and Migrants: The Eastern Kentucky Social Club (Afterword to this book by Thomas E. Wagner and Phillip J. Obermiller, 2004)

Blacks in Appalachia
Originally published in 1985, Blacks in Appalachia, which was co-edited by William H. Turner and Edward J. Cabbell, offered the first comprehensive presentation of the black experience in Appalachia.

Press

A scholar and pioneer (Mountain Xpress, 2018)

Interview (Head of the Holler, 2010)