Columbus native Tiffany Sturdivant received an award Monday from President Joe Biden on behalf of Appalshop, a nonprofit that does cultural preservation and organization in Appalachia.
Appalshop was among nine recipients of the 2022 Presidential Medal for the National Endowment for the Humanities, an annual award ceremony which this year included activist and Star Trek actor LeVar Burton as well as the late chef and author Anthony Bourdain.
“I’m still in awe of it all, if I’m being honest,” Sturdivant, Appalshop’s executive director, said. “Sometimes the work seems thankless. Not a lot of people understand exactly what it is we’re doing here. But to get that recognition from the first lady and our colleagues at the national endowment means so much to us. It reaffirms and recenters us, shows that we’re on the right path.”
Appalshop has been working to preserve and platform voices in the rural south for 55 years, started by a group of teenagers tired of national media’s reductive portrayals of Appalachia, Sturdivant said. Its mission has since expanded dramatically, covering everything from film to community theater to radio to record labels.
Not only does the nonprofit document the lives of Appalachians, it provides resources and platforms for them to give their own accounts to a national and international audience.
Today Appalshop has 20 employees and dozens of partners both nationally and internationally. Its archives are the largest collection of Appalachian media in the world.
“For me the correlation between eastern Kentucky and Mississippi is that we share such similar stereotypes,” Sturdivant said. “In eastern Kentucky they’re known as hillbillies. In Mississippi we’re just known as some poor folk. Both of us (are) at the bottom of education and health care nationwide. … We want to start a national conversation and bridge those divides.”
Sturdivant flew to Washington, D.C., Sunday with her father and a collection of other Appalshop employees. They toured the White House and eventually received their award from the president and first lady in the Oval Office, followed by a ceremony with the chairwomen of the National Endowments of the Arts and Humanities.
Tommy Anderson, of Elkhorn Creek, Kentucky, went to Washington to represent Appalshop as well. His work with the group has covered community theater, storytelling, community radio, after school music programs, archival and summer documentary institutes. Today, his official title is director of radical hospitality and housekeeping, a broad-based administrative position connecting artists and partners.
“I started coming around Appalshop when I was 12 years old,” he said. “I’m 34 now. Appalshop’s programming changed the trajectory of my life completely from what would have been really kind of a disaster, as a young person growing up in poverty and hardship. I continue to see Appalshop do that work for young people in our community.”
He characterized the award as a deeply gratifying experience, and one a long time coming for organizers trying to lift Appalachia past its troubles.
“It can be isolating, working in a really rural place like central Appalachia,” he said. “We’re up against some pretty rough stats in mental health, physical health, economic health. Working here, living here, growing up here, it’s been difficult to stay. Being invited to the nation’s capital and being recognized for the work Appalshop has done … it felt right.”
Though Sturdivant’s work today centers on Appalachia, she still views herself as a part of the Columbus community. She mounted an unsuccessful campaign for District 5 Lowndes County supervisor in 2023, and she doesn’t see herself staying away from home forever.
“My community organizing roots started in Columbus, in Memphis Town,” she said. “All the community organizers there, including my mom Scherrell Sturdivant, were who I saw growing up. And that’s what I aspired to be. I left Columbus to learn more about the opportunities that communities like ours have access to and bring that back. I am gone from my hometown. But only temporarily. I’ll be back.”
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