Mekyah Davis was born and raised in Big Stone Gap, Virginia where he currently lives with his twin brother, Geonoah and his dogs. They live on the same land that his family has lived for eight generations, and in the house that has been passed down for five generations. “I’m a product of an Appalachian love story,” Mekyah told us. “My parents met—my dad is from Birmingham, Alabama and my Mom is from my hometown, Big Stone Gap—they met at Berea College their first year and then got pregnant with me and my twin. And so then they had us.” Mekyah is deeply thoughtful about his complex and abundant inheritances—land, community, and a long struggle for freedom. He has a deep love of, and dedication to, this place and the freedom of its people as well as a clear eyed understanding of the violent histories, and current realities, of subjugation and domination that this place also holds.

“[At] the end of 2017 I was reading “The Souls of Black Folk” by Dr. W.E.B DuBois and he talked about this term, the ‘double consciousness’ that Black Americans often feel.” In the words of DuBois, “it is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”

“I think about that so often with my upbringing. You know I had my twin, and I had a cousin, and there was a couple other Black folks in my grade in the school system, but it wasn’t like even just a generation before with my mother’s upbringing. She grew up surrounded by Black children and Black folks, they were everywhere. Like, when she wasn’t in school that’s who she hung out with. So that’s something I reflect on my upbringing. I didn’t have that experience. So I guess it’s kind of isolating.”

Mekyah found his way into sports at a young age. A talented athlete, he found friendship and community playing football with aspirations of going on to play at the college level, before realizing a few days into the semester at UVA Wise that it was not his path. Having played since he was eight years old, he recounted the significance and heartbreak of that passion fading though he now reckons with what the militaristic mentality and culture surrounding football must have done to his psyche over the many years he played.

Mekyah and STAY Project Co-Coordinator Lou Murrey.

After his first year at UVA Wise, Mekyah took time off to recenter and imagine new possibilities for his future. After less than a year of rumination, Mekyah had enrolled in sociology courses at the community college and had found his way to the Stay Together Appalachian Youth Project (STAY) through a high school friend and the gracious persistence of STAY leaders to welcome him into their space and community. The STAY Project is a multiracial network of young people, age 14-30, rooted across six states in Central and Southern Appalachia who connect across the region to make their home communities places they can and want to STAY. And Mekyah now serves as one of the network’s Co-Coordinators.

After living in Johnson City, Tennessee for a year, he moved back to his family home in Big Stone Gap, VA, a move that brought with it all the joy and richness of tradition and legacy as well as its weight and pain. “I appreciate the small town feel,” Mekyah told us, talking about his love for his hometown, as well as his community. “I appreciate the quietness. I appreciate how slow things are at times. I appreciate how people show up for one another, whether it be, and I hate that it’s usually for times of grief, but like, the community shows up for one another.”

Mekyah and Jules, RP’s Story Coordinator, at the 2017 STAY Summer Institute on the hill at the legendary Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee.

“But also, I think community is complicated,” he reminded us. “Like, specifically we’re talking about Big Stone; like this place that has nurtured me and shaped me to who I am, this, that, and the other, is also filled with, you know, folks who are racist. Whose kids we played with, we played sports with, or whose kids are now racist themselves who just turn out to be just like [their parents]. You know, and it’s like this anywhere, [...] there’s the closed ignorance but also there’s this overt sense of, like, entitlement.”

At the same time, since moving back to Big Stone Gap, Mekyah has been reflecting deeply on what it means to fulfill his familial legacy. “It’s not something I thought about a lot, but as I’ve moved back it’s something that I’ve really valued and cherished. Not only just how special it is to have this tangible piece of property. That’s one thing that has been able to root my family in place, you know? Is having this tangible piece of property that has been passed on. [...] Even if I decide I don’t want to stay here the rest of my life, [...] I’ve just been thinking about, like, what do I owe my family to somewhat keep my roots here in this, like, in this foundation, in this place that has been so much, that has shaped me, for better or worse, into who I am today. You know?”

Along with a familial legacy, Mekyah has inherited a legacy of Black, Southern, and Appalachian freedom struggle. He gestures to the work of STAY as a guide, recalling his first experience at a STAY gathering: “it was truly just transformative for me. It was my first time really being in that, it was my first time engaging in a popular education style, type of learning, and also just my first time really being in that type of liberatory space. So it was really powerful for me.” Mekyah’s vision, and the work of STAY, is deeply rooted in the rich tradition and historical knowledge and context of Southern Freedom Movements. Mekyah speaks about his work as spreading a “gospel of liberation” to young folks across Central and Southern Appalachia—meeting folks where they are at and not leaving them there, giving folks hope, something to look forward to, and resources to act on their belief in the possibility of a better world.

Young folks gathered from across Central Appalachia and the South at the Southern Movement Assembly 8 in Hazlehurst, Mississippi.

Mekyah moves that belief into action. He works to cultivate a community that centers the leadership of Black, Indigenous, and other youth of color, queer and trans youth, disabled youth, and folks younger than 18. He has embodied this commitment in his stewardship of the Black Appalachian Young and Rising program and organization of its inaugural gathering, in his leadership in STAY, and so much more. He envisions a community grounded in our history as Appalachian and Southern people, learning, at once, from the legacies of violence, white supremacy, and the Confederacy and those of resilience, solidarity, the Mine Wars, and the Southern Black Freedom Movement so as to step into this moment with context, intention, and strategy. And for these reasons he is excited to be building and resisting with the Southern Movement Assembly (SMA), working from their State of the South report that “captures the struggles that communities on the Southern frontlines experience daily and the conditions that shape those struggles [...] with a goal of informing the shifts needed to achieve real and lasting change.” SMA is a multiracial, multi-issue, multigenerational movement alliance of grassroots organizations across the South. A reflection of this interconnected awareness, the STAY Project serves on its governance council.

Mekyah and Geonoah outside their home in Big Stone Gap.

Mekyah believes deeply in cultural organizing as a tool to move people. “I think people respond well to art, whether it be visual art or whether it be music. So I think culture is so important in the work that we do, and just how we engage people, but how we move people and touch people.” He continued, “we all have different backgrounds, levels of experience and understanding, but we’re all, everybody that lives here, we all do have this shared culture and identity of being Appalachian. And I think about that as a way of moving people and a way of meeting people where they are at. And then from there you can move through the nuances of culture.” Since its inception, STAY has celebrated the power of culture, from developing the #AppalachianLoveStory to empower folks in order to share their complex and nuanced feelings about this place on their own terms to hosting their first Appalachian Love Fest in February of 2019 in Harlan, Kentucky, and virtually this past February, which brought together musicians, poets, visual artists, and activists from across the region for a day of celebration and joy.

“When I think of my community I think of love and care. Like I feel a deep, like a deep sense of trust. There’s a lot that comes to mind, but I just think of being able to be present, like, being able to be present, and just being able to be, honestly. And just that being okay.” Mekyah reminds us that relationships of care and kinship must be at the roots of movements that seek to challenge systems of domination and oppression. “Continuing to care for one another and build relationships, that’s the crucial thing, that’s the biggest thing, just building genuine relationships with one another.”

What is Appalachia?

“It’s broad, it’s complex, it’s beautiful, it’s home. [...] Something that I didn’t realize when I was younger is that it is what you make it, you know? It is what the people that are here make it. I’m thankful for STAY for “helping me to stay,” and realize that, and giving me the wherewithal to stay and fight for this place that I love, these communities that are near and dear to my heart and that have shaped me to who I am. And so, yeah, Appalachia is home.”

You can find out more about STAY’s work, subscribe to their newsletter, or become a member at their website thestayproject.net.