Junaluska provides valuable insight into North Carolina’s history, Black Mennonites, and race in Appalachia. Thousands of tourists and Appalachian State football fans walk down King Street in Boone, North Carolina, past farm-to-table cafes and the Mast General Store, without knowing about Junaluska. The Junaluska community sits just north of the university, and it remains one of the most important and unique sites of Black history in Appalachia. During the 1850s, two free Black men—Johnson and Ellington Cuzzins—moved to Boone. Cuzzins’ descendants worked with other enslaved, free, and immigrant Black folks to…
