Having lived my early childhood on a Kentucky hillside, where a lush natural world enclosed and contained us, I had no idea that the outside world did not see Black folks at home in the wilderness. In the hills, we lived in harmony with the earth and nature. The hills were where low—income people lived— white and Black. In some strange way, we were all outcasts. As a child, I did not know how we came to live there. I did not know we were poor; no one spoke of it. Ours was a rich vernacular language and a culture of plenty.

Only after leaving the hills did I begin to understand. I would come to know these hills as “Appalachia” only after leaving home in my late teens. Far away, I learned that my home state—Kentucky—was not a pure land but a landscape violated and plundered by greed and ruthless capitalism. Despite the devastation caused by corrupt mining practices and the work of coal, parts of the Kentucky landscape remain beautiful, seemingly untouched. In The Unforeseen Wilderness, Wendell Berry shares the profound insight that “what is being destroyed cannot be made beautiful.”

As an adult, returning to Kentucky after many years away, I purchased land in the hills to symbolically reclaim a piece of the African American Appalachian past. I intended to protect the land so that no capitalist development would ever take over. I don’t work the land, but I’m afraid I have to disagree with the notion that those who want to hunt and kill can claim access to it. I let the land be. I seek to move it beyond violation. As I heal from personal trauma, I seek to heal a forsaken, forlorn hillside. I plant trees. I plant the “white dawn” roses favored by generations of women in my family. I write a book of essays, Belonging, about yearning for a home place, agriculture, land, and racism.

As a Black woman writing about Appalachia, I receive little notice. I can talk about race, gender, and class and be heard, but when I speak about environmental issues and the ways agrarian Black folks hold the earth sacred, few listen. Wendell Berry’s voice, as a representative of Appalachia, is heard. I listen to his words and learn. Fervently, he teaches me. But, like a mighty giant, a goliath, I—Kentucky’s Black female writer—stand continually in his shadow. I am not considered a companion voice. We do not join to speak about our love for Kentucky and our hopes for an earth free from exploitation.

Unlike most Kentucky writers, particularly the male ones, my work addressing environmental issues always calls attention to gender politics. Writers on land and environmental subjects in Kentucky rarely comment on gender or the particular experiences of women. No one speaks about our intimate relationship with the land or the impact of war (the Civil War), environmental pollution, sexual predation, loss of jobs, and hunger on female lives. During the early years of my Kentucky homecoming, I invited Gloria Steinem to the hills. She was the first person to sleep in the cabin where I went to write. She spoke with Kentucky women of all ages—white, Black, Asian, Latina, women of diverse sexual preferences, women from the hills and hollers, and some from university settings. We joined to fellowship, share our stories, and speak about our triumphs and failures. Some came from positions of material plenty, some from poverty, and others who consciously chose a simple life. When we met, there were no cameras, publicity, or outsiders. Steinem, herself an outsider who had not initially been excited about my return to Kentucky, was deeply moved by the Kentucky landscape. We shared both the beauty and the ugliness with her. During her visit, she saw where the needy and poor reside—spaces resembling war-torn refugee camps worldwide. Places where women live with water that is not clean, where sexual violence abounds, and where hunger persists. Steinem’s presence here helped break the silence surrounding the lives of Appalachian women. There is much work to be done to create an environment where the collective voices of Appalachian women can be heard across race and class.

It was a tremendous intervention for Emma Watson, the UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, to make a short pilgrimage to Kentucky, Berea College, and the Bell Hooks Institute. Emma Watson travels the world to highlight conditions for women and speak on behalf of gender equality. All over the world, there are Appalachian—sites of disenfranchisement where women bear the brunt of exploitation and oppression. Emma Watson’s inclusion of our Appalachia on the map of her journey was an incredible gift. Her meetings with folks and her conversations with students, though not large in scale, helped raise awareness of the need for gender equality both in Kentucky and beyond. The solidarity and sisterhood we embody (Emma and Bell) is a guiding light for those of us who know that the fate of women everywhere will not change until we work together across all our differences to create the necessary conditions for liberation and collective well-being.