So Are West Virginians Really Hillbillies?

West Virginia gets a bad rap, but so do the mountains of NC and pretty much anywhere in Appalachia. Too many people remember the movie deliverance, and yeah, a lot of that was filmed in the mountains of NC. I've had my own set of struggles when people hear how I talk. It was rough getting through college when everyone thought you were dumb because of the word choice and accent based off where you came from. It's a lot better now as people have come a good ways from that way of thinking. I remember having this really good friend in college that tried her best to lose her NC accent because she felt like everyone thought she was dumb, so she purposefully tried to lose it.

Jay,
Thanks for the link. I've been enjoying these videos. They're both informative and entertaining. And they help to reinforce the wisdom of the Founding Fathers regarding democracy.

Jay, some of them may be hillbillies, but "hillbilly" is not necessarily a pejorative (although it often is). It is certainly not a direct synonym for "white trash"!
West Virginia was created by seceding from Virginia when Virginia seceded from the United States. Genteel and proper Virginia dearly loved slavery; the raggedy yeoman farmers of West Virginia, not so much. So by today's standards, West Virginia was a more forward-thinking and egalitarian state than Virginia. (I purposely avoid using the word "progressive" for fear that it will be mistaken for the word "Progressive".) So, I guess whether or not they are mere benighted bumpkins is in the eye of the beholder.
EDIT: Apologies if that info was in the link. I didn't click on it because I am not on my own computer.

Wikipedia does not agree, but people claim the word "hillbilly" originated during the black patch tobacco wars as fqmilies turned on each other as many did not agree to join the association and were not able to sell their tobacco for even cost. It was a bloody time in our history and a good read if you have time.
I believe Hopkonsville, KY still remains the only US city to ever be seized.

A writer who represents and writes about mountain culture is Fred Chappell, who has dozens of books to his credit -- novels, poetry, short stories, essays -- is a great representative of mountain people. He was a prof and a mentor of mine, and it was always fun to see academic folk who didn't know him condescend and then get somewhat skinned alive by his incredible vast memory and learning. It would cure anyone of any such illusions of mountain folk's intellect, in about forty-five seconds or less. And it wasn't a pretty experience.

and then get somewhat skinned alive...in about forty-five seconds or less. And it wasn't a pretty experience.

Click to expand...

Damn...that's almost as bad as what happened to Ned Beatty.

I been to the hills. They got BOTH kinds of music there, country AND western... :nana:

Most "hillbillies" that I have run across, including my wife...are the kind of folks that made America what it is...they are solid, truth-telling, kick-your-ass-in-a-second folks..people that I love being around...cause they are the salt of the Earth and except for Kentucky folks the best folks you can ever hope to meet.

I live in Ohio and worked in Kentucky for almost 30 years. There is most certainly a "mountain" culture which I experienced by just crossing the Mason Dixon line every day when I took the bridge over the Ohio river. Thing is, to a large extent, even in a more "hillbilly" state, people are just people. Kentucky was, for the most part, like any more rural suburb of Cincinnati. That was true even though many people I worked with had been born in the mountains, many near or in Hazard.
There was, however, a significant minority which was different. It was the stereotype. As to them, I'll differentiate between "hillbillies" and "rednecks".
I like hillbillies, I think I'm a bit of a hillbilly myself. Someone who likes the country, likes DIY, and is far from pretentious. A redneck, however, is quite a bit more rowdy and more importantly, doesn't like non-rednecks.
Basically, the kind of cousin lovin' yahoo who gives respectable white trash like myself a bad name.
Intelligence is not a factor in either one. I've known some hillbillies who could crunch numbers in their head in ways to amaze me, although their speech was heavily accented and sounded like someone from "deliverance".
The difference might be that rednecks seem to be suspicious of and dislike people not like themselves whereas hillbillies are friendly folks who are nicer than many city folk I have known.
Again, both taken together were a minority, albeit a significant one. Mostly, people are the same all over.

Half my family is in West Virginia and, yes, they are hillbillies! Quiet, honest, hardworking folks who love their families, their country, and their culture. Many lack any form of formal education, but are extremely intelligent in their trades and full of life's wisdom. Warm, kind, good-hearted folks. You don't knock on doors, you walk right in and say "Hello".

I did a newspaper internship in the Ozarks and most of my feature stories were about local rural people. Though growing up in the Chicago suburbs, my family had experiences with a number of non-urban people so didn't harbor the usual boring prejudices city folks have about others. In the Ozarks, I employed my somewhat quiet nature and mostly good manners to get by. I learned a lot from the citizenry. As both a photographer and writer, I was assigned to take pictures and be the judge for the newspaper's farm beautification contest, which I did, and thought deeply about the judging. Nothing was ever said, but I knew full well I was selected as judge because I was leaving town in a few weeks and would therefore be out of range of retribution. But mostly, people were kind, supportive, and quite trusting of this weird outlander who had arrived among them. My wife, who grew up in fairly remote rural Missouri, meantime, did her summer internship in Detroit during the '67 riots and was co-recipient of the Free Press's Pulitzer Prize.

There's a difference between hillbillies, rednecks and trailer park trash. There are hillbillies in West Virginia for sure but that certainly doesn't make every citizen on the State a hillbilly. Same can be said for NC, TN, KY, TN and Arkansas. I have met very few true hillbillies because true hillbillies would stick to the hills and be rather isolated.
Aside from that, the majority of people I have met from all those States are among the nicest people you would meet anywhere. If you assume someone who moves and speaks at a slower pace is a hillbilly and stupid, you'd be sorely mistaken. It is just their culture. I've found them to be no smarter or stupider than people from anywhere else.
Just to put it into perspective, I'd much rather live just about anywhere in one of those States than in most large, metro areas.

Real Hillbillies are few, they’re mostly quiet , Cajuns are like them in one respect, Cajuns like to talk, but compare both they are alike, used to visit some in West Virginia when I was in the Navy, they liked my skills in butchering, farming, knowing how to talk and respect the elderly, skills being lost by young folks. They made elderberry jam, we made fig jam, different jams but same people. One thing, they liked stories, told them my Grandfathers stories and boy did they like them.

I always felt honored when I won some trust because you know you are being closely evaluated. It's their call. I hoped for the best, but expected nothing. As a writer, my major "power" was to listen.

Biggest redneck I ever met was from NY state, worse than me.

I spent a lot of years working as a salesman in Southeast Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Met a lot of very nice people in these small rural farming/mining towns. I don't know if they were rednecks or hillbillies. But, I was always treated well and enjoyed working with them and having the opportunity to see how they lived their lives. Good people are good people. No matter where you run across them. ::

I was on a load through West Virginia when a bad crash on the interstate diverted traffic over the next ridge and onto a state or local highway through a parallel valley (I couldn't tell you where exactly). I remember being shocked at the evident poverty of the people living in this particular valley. It immediately called to my mind the condition of the Indian Reservations so near to my native Iowa, and for obvious reasons; in both cases they are (through no fault of their own) an economically marginalized people living on poor, difficult soil and with few prospects, except to seek better fortune elsewhere. And yet any view that would connect prosperity to moral worth is given the lie here; these people are good, helpful, and friendly.
Any man who has not found himself in a mountainous country with no vehicle or cell coverage, and at the mercy of rural strangers, has had a very deficient education. I have had this experience directly in both Montana and Arkansas. (Probably the mountain-dwellers wish by now that I would just stay away, and stop bothering them with my City- and University-minted ignorance :rofl: )