William H. Turner is a sociologist who was born in the heart of the Appalachian coalfields in Harlan County, Kentucky. He is the author of The Harlan Renaissance: Stories of Black Life in Appalachian Coal Towns, which earned a Weatherford Award in Nonfiction and a Kentucky Historical Society Governor’s Award. Turner is also the coeditor of Blacks in Appalachia and a guest editor for a special issue of Blacks in Appalachia, published by Berea College’s American Heritage, a magazine of Southern Appalachian Life & Culture.