Artist: Sarah Hoskins

Project: A Visit to Lynch

Description: The 2016 news cycle published many articles and images of Eastern Kentucky as both white and poor. However, the town of Lynch, a historically African American community in Harlan County established in 1917 by the U.S. Coal and Coke Company, stands strong. Today the town is most well known for its “Eastern Kentucky Social Club,” an annual reunion for which hundreds of former miners and their families have, for almost fifty years, traveled to Lynch to move the past into the present and bring investment to the town’s transitioning economy. Last September, photographer Sarah Hoskins was invited to document year-round residents at Reverend Ronnie R. Hampton’s eighteenth anniversary with his fellowship, Greater Mt. Sinai Baptist Church.