In the latest episode of Black in the Bluegrass, host Stacy Brooks and Phillip M. Bailey sit down with Josh Poe, a tenant organizer from Eastern Kentucky who is working to build a powerful statewide tenant union. Their wide-ranging conversation delves into Josh's personal history growing up in generational poverty in Appalachia, the abandonment of the working class by the Kentucky Democratic Party, and the urgent need to organize tenants to fight displacement and secure guaranteed housing for all.
A key theme that emerges is the power of place and how capitalism has severed people's connections to their hometowns and communities. Josh shares the realization that he, like tenant leaders from the Bronx and Palestine he organizes with, is "from a place we can't go back to." In Eastern Kentucky, the economy and population have been gutted, leaving only nostalgia for a vanished way of life.
"Nobody wants to be from a place that's not there anymore,"
This sense of rootlessness and dislocation is something Josh sees as a point of commonality and solidarity between working class whites in Appalachia and black residents facing gentrification and skyrocketing eviction rates in West Louisville. "Nobody wants to be from a place that's not there anymore," he notes. Building tenant power across racial lines is essential to preventing further displacement.
Josh pulls no punches in his critique of the Democratic establishment in Kentucky, arguing they represent developer and real estate interests, not the working class. For tenant organizing to succeed, he believes it must remain independent, focus on building a base, and practice "co-governance" where elected officials are accountable to and take direction from that base.
While the loss of allies like Councilman Jecorey Arthur is a blow, Josh remains committed to the long-term work of constructing a statewide tenant union and running tenant union members for office. The stakes couldn't be higher, he argues, with massive increases in homelessness on the horizon if we don't build real power.
Uncompromising, incisive and rooted in the struggles of the multiracial working class, Josh Poe exemplifies a new generation of Kentucky organizers working to unite the hood and the holler. This interview is a must-listen for anyone who cares about the future of our state and our people.
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