How Black Women From Southern West Virginia Shaped the 20th Century

From Politics to Professional Sports, Medicine to Entrepreneurship Women from Bluefield Led the Way

In the 1920s, Bluefield, WV emerged as a cosmopolitan city of the highest degree. In the heart of Appalachian coal country, it was a seedbed of black entrepreneurship and empowerment. When W.E.B. Du Bois arrived to deliver a speech in Bluefield, the Bluefield Institute (now Bluefield State College, an HBCU formed in 1895) was a blossoming institution…