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["W.I. Bill Hairston, 71, is a storyteller, old-time musician, and pastor (Westminster Presbyterian Church) living in Charleston, West Virginia. He was born in Phenix City, Alabama, and his family moved to Saint Albans, West Virginia in 1960 when he was 11. Through his storytelling, Hairston, as he says in the interview, combines the Appalachian culture that he was exposed to on the Coal River, to the African-American culture that he is a part of. For 35 years, he served as music coordinator at the Stonewall Jackson Jubilee, and is currently the coordinator of the Vandalia Gatherings West Virginia Liars Contest. Hairston is an active member of the West Virginia Storytelling Guild, the Kentucky Storytelling Association, and the Ohio Storytelling Network, the National Association of Black Storytellers, and serves as the West Virginia liaison to the National Storytelling Network. He has performed in concerts, festivals, libraries, corporate meetings, conventions and schools throughout the region and the country.  This interview is a follow-up to Emily Hilliards September 10, 2019 interview with Hairston. In this interview, Hairston discusses his participation in the last segregated Black 4-H Camp at Camp Washington-Carver, and the first integrated 4-H Camp at Jacksons Mill. He also speaks about his summer job with the Department of Natural Resources and his involvement in the United Methodist Youth Fellowship when he was young."]
["W.I. Bill Hairston, 71, is a storyteller, old-time musician, and pastor (Westminster Presbyterian Church) living in Charleston, West Virginia. He was born in Phenix City, Alabama, and his family moved to Saint Albans, West Virginia in 1960 when he was 11. Through his storytelling, Hairston, as he says in the interview, combines the Appalachian culture that he was exposed to on the Coal River, to the African-American culture that he is a part of. For 35 years, he served as music coordinator at the Stonewall Jackson Jubilee, and is currently the coordinator of the Vandalia Gatherings West Virginia Liars Contest. Hairston is an active member of the West Virginia Storytelling Guild, the Kentucky Storytelling Association, and the Ohio Storytelling Network, the National Association of Black Storytellers, and serves as the West Virginia liaison to the National Storytelling Network. He has performed in concerts, festivals, libraries, corporate meetings, conventions and schools throughout the region and the country.  In this interview, Hairston speaks about growing up in one of three Black families in the Lick Skillet area of Saint Albans along the Coal River, his interest in and work with rural West Virginia old-time musicians and 4-H camps, his friendship with Frank and Jane George, experiences with racism in West Virginia, and his work and mission as an Appalachian storyteller."]

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["With his wife, Leonard Harris (b. Martinsburg, WV, October 30, 1936) is the co-founder of Sumner-Ramer School African American Museum and Archive in Martinsburg, West Virginia. He is an alumnus of Sumner-Ramer, which was the Black school in Berkeley County during segregation. The school closed in 1965, one year after schools in the county were integrated and 10 years after the Brown v. Board ruling. The Sumner-Ramer Museum and Archive is located in a ground-floor room of the school building and contains materials from the school and its alumni, including ephemera, photos, artifacts, portraits, and more."]

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