List Members:

After nearly six years in the making, the documentary movie "Melungeon 
Voices" was premiered on June 30th and July 1st, 2007 at the Seventh 
Melungeon* Gathering in Big Stone Gap, Virginia.

The documentary tells the Melungeons' story in their own words using 
interviews, family photographs, and family records. It describes the long 
years of ostracism, marginalization, and outright discrimination they 
suffered—often at the hands of government agencies such as Virginia's 
Bureau of Vital Statistics and its registrar, Walter Plecker.

Featured prominently in the documentary is Melungeon author and activist 
Brent Kennedy, who retold Melungeon history as the prime example of a 
multi-ethnic population who put aside their racial and cultural 
differences, came together, and survived as one people. Kennedy's rallying 
cry was "One People, All Colors."

The Sunday evening showing, which this writer attended, drew sustained 
applause. The documentary concludes on a sad note, with a notice that Brent 
Kennedy suffered a debilitating stroke in Fall 2005. Nonetheless, Kennedy 
was in a wheel chair in the center of the front row for that showing, when, 
for the first time, he saw the finished production from start to finish.

This showing was particularly poignant because of the sharp contrast 
between the vigorous on-screen Kennedy, and the Kennedy in the audience,

The documentary was produced by Julie Williams Dixon, a 1981 graduate of 
the Department of Communications at Virginia Tech and videographed by 
Warren Gentry.  Dixon is a principal in the Raleigh, NC-based script 
writing and video production company Words and Pictures. Gentry is a 
principal in the Raleigh, NC-based Warren Gentry and Associates video 
production company.

As members of this listserv well know, race is a deeply embedded aspect of 
Virginia history and one that periodically obsesses our discussions.

"Melungeon Voices" offers an optimistic message about race in Virginia. In 
this writer's opinion it deserves the widest possible showing.

Jim Glanville
Retired Chemist
201 Graves Avenue
Blacksburg, VA 24060-5305

*Melungeons are a mixed-ethnic people descended from Native Americans from 
the Virginia/Carolina region as well as African-Americans, Europeans, and 
Mediterranean/Middle Eastern people who intermarried in colonial times. 
Traditional Melungeon centers in Virginia, are Lee, Scott, Tazewell, Wise, 
and adjacent counties.

Selected Bibliography

Alther, Lisa. Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree. New York: Arcade, 2007.

DeMarce, Virginia Easley. "Review Essay: The Melungeons." National 
Genealogy Society Quarterly, 84(2): 134-149, 1996.

Elder, Pat Spurlock. The Melungeons: Examining An Appalachian Legend. 
Blountville, TN: Continuity Press, revised, expanded, updated manuscript 
edition, 2004.

Gallegos, Eloy J. The Melungeons: The Pioneers of the Interior Southeastern 
United States, 1526-1997. Knoxville: Villagra Press, 1997

Kennedy, N. Brent with Robyn Vaughan Kennedy. The Melungeons: the 
resurrection of a proud people, an untold story of ethnic cleansing in 
America. 2nd, rev., and corr. ed. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1997.

Reed, John Shelton. "Mixing in the Mountains." Southern Cultures, 3(4): 
25-36,1997.

Winkler, Wayne. Walking Toward the Sunset: the Melungeons of Appalachia. 
Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 2005.