Melungeon Heritage Association's Annual Union

[Marvin Jones]

Fifteenth Union: A Melungeon Gathering

Carolina Connections: Roots and Branches of Mixed Ancestry Communities

Warren Wilson College, Swannanoa, NC, July 14 through 16, 2011.

15th Union MHA’s First in the Carolinas

MHA is delighted to announce that this year our annual Union will be
celebrated at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, NC, July 14-16,
2011. This will be our first Union in the Carolinas, states of primary
significance to the history of mixed ancestry communities across
America. Melungeon roots in the Carolinas have been prominent topics
of discussion in past Unions, and MHA welcomes the opportunity to
celebrate and study our heritage on this historic and beautiful
campus. Warren Wilson College is located a few miles from Asheville in
a scenic area near the highest mountains in the East. It has historic
connections to the Melungeon community of Vardy, which the Union will
celebrate.

We will have speakers on a wide variety of genealogical and historical
topics. The program is still being developed, but two distinguished
authors have agreed to discuss their new books at the Union. Each book
breaks new ground in the literature of mixed ancestry in the United
States.
The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey
from Black to White (Penguin, 2011) tells three stories that will be
especially meaningful to MHA readers. Author Daniel J. Sharfstein is
an associate professor of law at Vanderbilt University. Within a month
of publication, his new book was acclaimed in the New York Times as
"astonishingly detailed rendering of the variety and complexity of
racial experience in an evolving national culture moving from slavery
to segregation to civil rights." This study of the Gibson, Spencer,
and Wall families has the potential to change the national
conversation about race, and MHA is honored by Mr. Sharfstein’s
participation in 15th Union.

Lisa Alther is an acclaimed author of bestselling fiction whose most
recent book was a nonfiction investigation of Melungeon ancestry
entitled Kinfolks: Falling off the Family Tree. She returns to fiction
with Washed in the Blood, forthcoming this fall from Mercer University
Press. Alther’s new novel portrays the early history of the southern
Appalachians. It tells the story of several generations of the Martin
family, from the arrival of Diego Martin as a hog drover with a
Spanish exploring party in the 16th century, describing his
descendants’ struggles to survive and gain acceptance down through the
early 20th century. In this new novel, Alther connects Melungeon
history to early settlement of the Southeastern US, and thus to the
theme of 15th Union.

Marvin T. Jones, executive director of the Chowan Discovery Group,
whose mission is to research, document, preserve and present the
history of the tri-racial landowning people of color in North
Carolina's Winton Triangle, will present a history of role played by
Winton Triangle soldiers during and after the Civil War.

Warren Wilson College is known as a center for traditional mountain
music with its annual Swannanoa Gathering. Please bring your own
musical instruments, and old family pictures, recipes, stories and
tall tales to share. We will have available inexpensive, although
somewhat limited, on-campus housing and dining for attendees. Further
details will be announced when registration opens on May 1.