About

William H. Turner, PhD, the fifth of ten children, was born in 1946 in the coal town of Lynch, Kentucky, in Harlan County. His grandfathers, father, four uncles and older brother were coal miners.

Bill has spent his professional career studying and working on behalf of marginalized communities, helping them create opportunities in the larger world while not abandoning their important cultural ties. He is best-known for his ground-breaking research on African-American communities in Appalachia, but Bill’s work is universal. As an academic and a consultant, he has studied economic systems and social structures in the urban South and burgeoning Latino communities in the Southwest. What he strives for on behalf of his clients and their communities is what we all want: prosperity, understanding and respect.

Today, Bill and his wife, Vivian – the retired President of the R.J. Reynolds Foundation in Winston-Salem, N.C. – live near their children and grandchildren in Houston.

Education
BS - Sociology - University of Kentucky
Foreign Affairs Scholars Program - Howard University
MS - Sociology - Notre Dame University
Ph.D. - Sociology & Anthropology - Notre Dame University
Post Doctoral  || University of Pennsylvania || Duke University

Career highlights to date

• Co-edited the path-breaking textbook Blacks in Appalachia and thematic essays on Black Appalachians in the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, and the Encyclopedia of Appalachia.

• Research associate (1979-1991) to Roots author Alex Haley, who said, “Bill knows more about black people in the mountains of the South than anyone in the world.”

• Chair, Department of Social Sciences, Winston-Salem State University.

• Center for the Study of Civil Rights & Race Relations, Duke University.  Ford Foundation-sponsored post-doctoral fellow. John Hope Franklin, Adviser.

• Formerly Dean of Arts and Sciences and Interim President, Kentucky State University, Vice President for Multicultural Affairs, University of Kentucky; and, Distinguished Professor of Appalachian Studies and Regional Ambassador at Berea College.

• At the time of his retirement in late 2017, Turner was Research Scientist Leader at the Prairie View A&M University College of Agriculture and Human Sciences, where he led the collection and analysis of data on underserved Texans, the economically insecure, and long-term impoverished.

Honors

• The Harlan Renaissance: Stories of Black Life in Appalachian Coal Towns has been named the winner of the 2023 Kentucky Historical Society Governor’s Award!

  Every four years in the last year of a governor’s term, the Office of the Governor and the Kentucky Historical Society jointly present the Governor’s Award award to an author whose book, as judged by a panel of scholars, is deemed to have made the most significant contribution to Kentucky history. The award was established in 1979.

• The Harlan Renaissance has won the 2021 Weatherford Award for Non-Fiction! One judge said:

  • “The Harlan Renaissance is an invaluable piece of Black Appalachian history and should be celebrated as such. William H. Turner weaves together years of historical research and a personal family history/narrative that is full of rich sociological analyses and detailed memories. In a through-generational voice, Turner sheds light on the harsh historical realities of Black Appalachian life while also envisioning a future of Appalachia in which Black communities and their stories are central.”

• The Harlan Renaissance has been nominated for the 2021 Weatherford Award for Non-Fiction! Since 1970, the Weatherford Awards, presented jointly by the Appalachian Studies Association and Berea College, honor works of non-fiction, fiction, and poetry published in the prior calendar year that “best illuminate the challenges, personalities, and unique qualities of the Appalachian South.”

• Recipient of the 2021 Individual Mountain Heritage Award. Since 1976, Western Carolina University has presented the award to recognize “outstanding contributions to the preservation or interpretation of the history and culture of southern Appalachia; or in recognition of outstanding contributions to research in or interpretation of, southern Appalachian issues.”

• 2021 Inductee to the College of Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame at the University of Kentucky (Sociology '68).

• In “recognition of transformative leadership, distinguished service and notable accomplishments” the University of North Carolina Asheville awarded Turner an Honorary Doctorate in August 2020.

• In 2009, Turner was recommended by members of the Kentucky delegation of the U.S. House of Representatives to President Obama to serve as Federal Co-Chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission.

• In 2009, the Appalachian Studies Association (ASA) honored Bill for a lifetime of service to the Appalachian region.

• In 2008, Bill was recognized as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Citizen of the Year, for “advocating for the rights and expanded educational opportunities for people in Appalachian Kentucky.”

• In 2007, Turner was inducted into the Kentucky Civil Rights Hall of Fame.

• Turner was named Notre Dame University “Distinguished Alumni Exemplar” in 2006.

• Turner was honored as Christian Appalachian Project “Person of the Year” in 1994.