‘Deeply traumatized.’ Arts retreat at Pine Mountain ends after confrontation. What’s next? | Opinion

For 110 years, a small swathe of mighty Pine Mountain has been a shelter, a school, and a gathering place in Harlan County. But this past weekend, Pine Mountain Settlement School instead became the latest flashpoint in our culture wars.

The Waymakers Collective, a group of Appalachian artists, was holding its annual meeting at Pine Mountain Settlement School. It included performances, artist workshops, film screenings and art activities. Participants stayed in the cottages and dorms around the compound.

They also had permission to use the chapel, and set it up as a “healing space” with pillows, mats, a table of aromatic oils and an “om” symbol, which symbolizes the universe in the Hindu religion. They were not allowed to move the pews, but Pine Mountain staff set up tables.

On Saturday, someone took a picture of the chapel and posted it on social media, which was soon shared around the Harlan County community of Bledsoe, where Pine Mountain is located. According to a statement from the Pine Mountain board, community members called the interim director and board chair about the chapel. Pine Mountain officials asked the Waymakers to move the “healing space” to another location, and the Waymakers agreed, according to the statement.

But before they could do so, a group of men and women in trucks and on ATVs, entered the Pine Mountain campus, blocked the exit, and then made their way to the chapel. According to the Waymakers’ statement, “the people who entered the chapel demanded that we leave. Our group was told they did not belong there, were desecrating a Christian space, and needed to leave right away. We were shocked by this as we had rented out the entire campus of PMSS for our event and were treating the entire property with respect and in the manner we had communicated to PMSS prior to our event.”

But the Waymakers, who are dedicated to the art of the marginalized, including indigenous people, people of color and LGBTQ folks, were terrified. They decided to end the retreat early, and according to their statement, left in a large convoy, so no one would be driving through Harlan County alone.

“Many of our participants are deeply traumatized by this experience, especially those of us with personal lived experiences of racial and gender-based violence,” the statement said.

A Pine Mountain staff member intervened, and both the Kentucky State Police and Harlan Sheriff’s deputies also appeared.

Tate Napier, one of the ringleaders, said on Facebook that he was polite and respectful, and helped the Waymakers move. But he was also unrepentant.

“We went in as a community of believers of Jesus Christ and had these people removed from His chapel!” he said on FB. “Nobody was mean, no fights broke out. We even helped them carry the stuff out and I tried speaking to them about Jesus, but they wanted no part in that.

“THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN ON MY WATCH I DONT CARE WHAT THE WORLD SAYS ABOUT IT I ONLY CARE WHAT GOD SAYS. IF YOU DONT LIKE IT SUE ME.

“This will also NEVER happen again at Pine Mountain Settlement School.”

Napier did not respond to a request for further comment.

An educational heritage

Napier is a descendant of William Creech, who gifted the land to educators Katherine Pettit and Ethel DeLong Zande, (who for their times were wildly progressive feminists), to start a school to educate the students of his county. Pettit had co-founded Hindman Settlement School in 1902.

Two years ago, I wrote a story about the Nativity Play that has been staged at the Pine Mountain Settlement School every year since the school’s founding in 1913. It gave me a better sense of how deeply the community feels about Pine Mountain as the site of generations of marriages and family reunions. The community, including Creech’s numerous descendants, feel Pine Mountain is their heritage, their homeplace. They feel it belongs to them and that a Hindu symbol was desecration of the chapel.

But it is not in fact theirs to decide on. Nor do they have the right to interrupt the programming that goes on there. Napier may feel he is on some kind of holy crusade, one that many people in the community agree with. But he is not in charge of the school. In fact, Pine Mountain officials had the situation well in hand before he and his fellow enforcers got to the school.

As the Pine Mountain Settlement School board ponders how lucky it was that no one got hurt, they will also have to decide who is in charge of the school, which financially depends on groups like Waymakers for their rental fees. According to the Kentucky Lantern, another group has already canceled their gathering there over Labor Day.

Here are some questions for board members: How did the photo of the chapel get to social media, inflaming local community members? Does the community have the right to interrupt any sessions they don’t approve of? What if someone used Pine Mountain (as they probably already have) for discussion of coal and climate change? Should the community approve of the workshops the school holds for students from around Kentucky who come to Bledsoe every year? Will participating groups have to pass some kind of religious purity test before being allowed to rent there?

Harlan Judge Executive Dan Mosley, who was married at the chapel, said he understood the feelings of people like Napier.

“One way to coexist is respect,” he said. “Respect for different people’s culture and ideology. Someone may not agree with my religious beliefs but they could respect them by not disrespecting where I worship, and I could respect their religious beliefs, too.”

Pine Mountain Settlement School could continue its educational heritage by working with both groups toward some better understanding. The Waymakers are willing.

“While we believe this incident over the weekend has been misunderstood by a small group of individuals, we are hopeful the leadership of PMSS will be open to work with us on a resolution as they have witnessed our annual gathering brought people together peacefully,” said Joe Tolbert Jr. the executive director of Waymakers Collective. “As a non-profit organization focused on healing, through the arts, we strive to sustain creative practice, land, livelihoods, and open communication. “We are here to build community, not divide.”

According to a statement released by the Pine Mountain board, it sounds like they will be willing as well. They stressed the retreat was a “private” function planned by the Waymakers.

“Pine Mountain was founded upon principles of the social settlement movement, which stressed building bridges between people of diverse backgrounds and circumstances, promoting mutual respect and understanding, and coming together to promote the common good,” the statement said.

Harlan artist, author and playwright Robert Gipe is a member of Waymakers and was at the retreat. He wonders if there is a way to talk about what Waymakers and people like Tate Napier have in common, which, because they are all Appalachian, is more than they might think.

“It’s hard times for everybody in this region except for a precious few and there is a lot of stress and pressure on everybody,” he said. “We’re trying to figure it out and people are getting comfort in different places. The question is, how do we have a society where the most people can be safe, how do we minimize the ways we feel threatened by one another?”