William H. Turner
​
​
​
Bill Turner was the first to combine interests in the fields of African American and Appalachian Studies, having co-edited the path-breaking textbook, Blacks in Appalachia (1985) and thematic essays on Black Appalachians in the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (1989) and the Encyclopedia of Appalachia (2006). Over the past half century, Turner has published extensively in national newspapers, refereed academic journals, and books on the black experience in Appalachia. Bill worked as research associate to Roots author Alex Haley, who wrote, in 1990, “Bill knows more about black people in the mountains of the South than anyone in the world. “ Appalshop’s 1987 award-winning documentary, Long Journey Home, has Bill’s imprint.
A freelance writer, Turner has published in the Los Angeles Times, the Oxford American, the Daily Yonder, and in dozens of African American newspapers, e.g., the Winston-Salem Chronicle, and he has held positions such as Dean of Arts and Sciences and Interim President, Kentucky State University, Vice President for DEI at the University of Kentucky, and as NEH Distinguished Professor of Black & Appalachian Studies and Regional Ambassador at Berea College. He serves on the boards of the National Trust for the Humanities – the fundraising arm of the National Endowment for the Humanities -- and the Great Smoky Mountains Association and is the Scholar-in-Residence for the Appalachian African American Cultural Center (Pennington Gap, Virginia). The William R. Kenan Family Trust awarded Turner a Distinguished Professor in late 2024 to expand his studies through the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center at Berea College.
​
Bill, the fifth of ten children, was born in 1946 in Lynch – Harlan County, Kentucky. Both grandfathers; father, four uncles and his older brother were coal miners in Southwest Virginia, Southern West Virginia, and Eastern Kentucky. His mother was born in Harlan County in 1924, his father William Earl, in Coeburn – Wise County -- Virginia in 1917. Bill holds a bachelor’s degree from Kentucky (1968) and the doctorate in sociology and anthropology at Notre Dame (1975). He has held post-doctoral fellowships from Penn, George Washington University, and Duke University.
​
Among his many honors, Bill received the Person of the Year Award in 1994 from the Christian Appalachian Project and was designated a Notre Dame University Distinguished Alumni Exemplar in 2006. In 2007, he was inducted into the Kentucky Civil Rights Hall of Fame as well as being recognized as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Citizen of the Year by the Governor for his “advocacy of the rights and expanded educational opportunities for people in the Appalachian sector of Kentucky.” In 2009, the Appalachian Studies Association (ASA) honored Bill for a Lifetime of Service region. In 2020, UNC-Asheville awarded Bill the Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters for “unparalleled scholarship about and services in the Appalachian coalfields.” The College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Kentucky inducted Bill into its Hall of Fame in 2021. The US Interior Department and National Park Service – through its 400 Years of African American History Commission -- conferred its Distinguished 400 Award to Bill on the 8th of August, 2022. In November 2025, Bill received the prestigious Zora Neale Hurston Award, the highest honor bestowed annually by the National Association of Black Storytellers, Inc. This distinguished award is given in honor of folklorist/author Zora Neale Hurston in recognition of an individual who has contributed to the preservation and perpetuation of African American folklore.
The Harlan Renaissance: Stories of Black Life in Appalachian Coal Towns, the title of Turner’s latest book (2021) is described as “…one of the most important books about Appalachia to appear in the last 50 years.” The book won the 2021 Award for Book of the Year, conferred by the Appalachian Studies Association. Turner’s Harlan Renaissance was selected in May 2023 as “the most significant book on Kentucky history in the past five years” by the Governor of Kentucky and the Kentucky Historical Society. The updated version of Blacks in Appalachia, titled Black in Appalachia: Race, Place, and Identity, edited by Cicero Fain III, Sheena Harris Hayes, Wilburn Hayden Jr., and Turner will be published in late 2026 by the University Press of Kentucky.
​
Bill and his wife of 56 years -- Vivian Love Turner, retired President of the RJ Reynolds Foundation - live near their three adult children, two daughters-in-law, four grandchildren and one great granddaughter in Houston.
