by design | Jul 16, 2023 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
Oscar DePriest of Illinois By Ray Hill The name of Oscar DePriest will surely be unfamiliar to most readers, but during his time, he was a political power in Chicago and was the first Black person to be elected to the City Council in the Windy City. DePriest also...
by design | Jul 9, 2023 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
Mountain State Dynasty: John Kee of West Virginia By Ray Hill For forty years, one family dominated the politics of West Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District. John Kee, a former state senator, was elected to the House of Representatives in the Democratic landslide...
by design | Jul 2, 2023 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
West Virginia Gentleman: Hugh Ike Shott By Ray Hill The State of West Virginia is now seen as a solidly “red” state, but there were decades when it was just as firmly Democratic. The pendulum has swung back and forth in the Mountain State, which had created itself by...
by design | Jun 25, 2023 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
By Ray Hill The best-selling author Pearl Buck once wrote, “If you want to understand today you have to search yesterday.” History is comprised of the high and the low and everything in between. The “great” historical figures every child (at least in my day) grew up...
by design | Jun 19, 2023 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
When the Mountain State had Three Senators “History is not the past but a map of the past, drawn from a particular point of view, to be useful to the modern traveler.” Historian Henry Glassie. By Ray Hill Sorting through history is rather like finding an...
by design | Jun 11, 2023 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives
By Ray Hill Burnet Rhett Maybank — his very name evokes the old Southland of books and stories. So, too, did his life story. Maybank’s middle name was for his mother’s family; Andrew Rhett had been a major in the Confederate Army. Burnet Maybank was the scion of a...