Ernie Mynatt

Photographs ©1996 Malcolm J. Wilson

Social activist, urban Appalachian advocate, troublemaker, and more or less official "Papa to His People," Ernie Mynatt shepherded a generation of Appalachian street kids to adulthood. Shortly after moving to Cincinnati from Harlan County in 1959, Ernie began working as a "detached social worker" for the Appalachian Fund, operating out of a storefront in Over the Rhine. When he wasn't working in the streets, he was lecturing to church and civic groups or agitating at City Hall for recognition of the needs of inner-city neighborhoods, especially Over the Rhine.  

"I spent ten years telling people how people left their homes in Louellen, Kentucky, or in High Splint, Kentucky, or some of the coal towns, and came to Cincinnati. And how they came and what caused them to come when they did. That was a breaking-in time. I was a country boy learning city ways. Now I'm a city boy with a country mind." 

Perceptions of Home: The Urban Appalachian Spirit ©1996 The Urban Appalachian Council (now Urban Appalachian Community Coalition)

Photographs ©1996 Malcolm J. Wilson; Interviews ©1996 Don Corathers

Photographs digitized by the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library. Genealogy & Local History Department.