Hy Thurman is one of the founding members of the Young Patriots, a radical group of mostly white working-class Appalachians who, together with the Black Panthers and the Young Lords, formed the first Rainbow Coalition in Chicago. Fifty years later, and 100 years after the Battle of Blair Mountain, how can we revive the revolutionary spirit of radical Appalachia and carry on its legacy today? In this installment of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc chats with Thurman about his book Revolutionary Hillbilly: Notes from the Struggle on the Edge of the Rainbow, how the Young Patriots formed, and the enduring lessons of the Rainbow Coalition. Along with being a lifetime community organizer and cofounder of the Young Patriot Organization, Thurman is the founder and president of the North Alabama School for Organizers.

Tune in for new segments of The Marc Steiner Show every Tuesday and Friday on TRNN.

Pre-Production/Studio/Post-Production: Stephen Frank

Creative Commons License

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Host, The Marc Steiner Show
Marc Steiner is the host of "The Marc Steiner Show" on TRNN. He is a Peabody Award-winning journalist who has spent his life working on social justice issues. He walked his first picket line at age 13, and at age 16 became the youngest person in Maryland arrested at a civil rights protest during the Freedom Rides through Cambridge. As part of the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968, Marc helped organize poor white communities with the Young Patriots, the white Appalachian counterpart to the Black Panthers. Early in his career he counseled at-risk youth in therapeutic settings and founded a theater program in the Maryland State prison system. He also taught theater for 10 years at the Baltimore School for the Arts. From 1993-2018 Marc's signature “Marc Steiner Show” aired on Baltimore’s public radio airwaves, both WYPR—which Marc co-founded—and Morgan State University’s WEAA.
 
marc@therealnews.com
 
@marcsteiner