On December 21, 1964, CBS aired a special report entitled “Christmas in Appalachia” with Charles Kuralt. The special visited folks Kuralt referred to as the “permanently poor” in the Eastern Kentucky counties of Letcher and Floyd. In this video, I discuss the report and show the original broadcast in its entirety. I have been fortunate to hear from some of the folks in the video as well as some of their families to get a couple of updates. As you might imagine, life had different twists and turns for the folks featured in the video,

I would love to hear your thoughts on it as well after watching. It was clearly a sad story and meant to call attention to the plight of the folks suffering from poverty and job loss. Several of the folks featured in the video really get an emotional grip on a viewer. I have heard from so many people about how this video makes them appreciate their own lives and upbringing in comparison.

I have noticed a lot of Appalachia-related documentaries from the mid-1960s that are centered in Eastern Kentucky, especially in the Letcher County area. A lot of the reason for this stems from the influential yet bleak book Night Comes to the Cumberlands by Harry Caudill. This work had an influence on John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and indirectly led to the infamous “War on Poverty.”

The effectiveness of the War of Poverty is certainly debatable but documentaries like this certainly left a lasting mark, for better and worse.