[ cheering ] robie: this place was a boomin . you couldn t get through this town down there. but it s dead now. about eight or ten coal mines shut down at one time. coach: let s go! it s the same halftime speech every single week. quentin: there is so much negativity surrounding this place that no one ever focuses on the positive. they see us as ignorant or hillbillies. daniel whitt: overdose capital of the east coast. quentin: but there s more here than just poverty and illiteracy and drugs. there s a lot of good people here. coach: when you walk on this field, you better have tunnel vision. don t look left, don t look right. you look at that scoreboard, and that should burn in your heart. do you understand me? we got some ground to make up. and once we make that ground up, we ll take off. let s go. i took a walk through this beautiful world felt the cool rain on my shoulder found something good in this beautiful world i felt the rain getting cold
lola: yes. after strip mines are done here, the land s usually just useless. so, we re trying to make a purpose. pumpkins, watermelon, we re just trying to figure out what will grow on it. anthony: so there is life after coal? lola: there s life after coal. so what do you think about that squirrel? anthony: oh man, it s good. lola: it s good, ain t it? anthony: thank you. drema: they call it wild and wonderful west virginia. anthony: it is. and, your girls are how old? lola: my girls are nine, eight, six, and three. anthony: taught any of them to shoot yet? lola: yeah, all of them can shoot. anthony: all of them? lola: all of them. they think their mommy is a big hero, too, cause she killed that big buck last year. anthony: yeah. how big was this thing? lola: 250, it weighed 250 lbs. anthony: you dragged that thing out of the woods yourself? lola: mhmm. anthony: dress it? lola: yes. anthony: cook it? lola: yup. leshawna: we don t rely on n
living here, is a really big challenge because rarely, people like myself actually are the ones that control our narrative, that control our story. anthony: it was always too easy to come gawk at west virginia. to make it the poster child for whatever the agenda of the moment was. lazy depictions of stereotypical west virginians. hillbillies and hicks, tucked into isolated hollers to be pitied or made objects of laughter and derision. elaine: if you google appalachia to this day, you re going to see dirty-faced kids, bare foot on a front porch, shaking lyndon b. johnson s hand. there s a lot more to appalachia than that. anthony: in 1964, lyndon johnson declared his war on poverty. a good thing, yes? but the accompanying press tour portraying the people here as an incapable and bewildered
mike: we ve got some sweet corn chowder. next, we ve got these crackers, they re broken communion wafers. you know, the way that appalachian food has always worked is you work within your means and you create something pretty special out of what you have at your disposal. we ve kind of suffered from this in a way. it created this sort of rush towards the middle class and a rush toward the perception that we re better than the food that we used to have to eat. john jennings: yeah, i think we were taught a lot to be embarrassed of our, you know, hillbilly past, you know? i remember coming home from school and my dad having hog s head on the kitchen table making head-cheese and sauce like, i would ve been mortified if somebody came over and saw that. josh bennett: a friend of mine s grandmother once told me, you know we used to make this cause we were poor, now me make it cause it s effing good. [ laughter ] anthony: oh, what s that? mike: this is some buttermilk fried rabbi
nick: there are some political figures that come through and say that they will try to get away from the mono-economy of coal. man: i just want to know, how you can say you re going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs, and then come in here and tell us how you re going to be our friend? nick: i don t think people understand just how genuine and wonderful the people are in these mountains. people who have just worked all their lives and who sacrifice so much for their families. anthony: you cannot talk about west virginia without talking about coal. and coal is a complex issue here. tied into the cell tissue and family pride of the people who have worked in the mines for generations. robie: that coal mine is something else, you know, you gotta take care of yourself in there. patrick graham: that fan is blowing about 200,000 cubic feet of air into the mine. fresh air. robie: when you go into that mine you don t know when you gonna live to see outside again.