William H. Turner, Ph.D.

William H. Turner, PhD, the fifth of ten children, was born in 1946 in the coal town of Lynch, Kentucky, in Harlan County. His grandfathers, father, four uncles and older brother were coal miners. Dr. Turner has spent his professional career studying and working on behalf of marginalized communities, helping them create opportunities in the larger world while not abandoning their important cultural ties. He is best-known for his ground-breaking research on African-American communities in Appalachia, but Dr. Turner’s work is universal. As an academic and a consultant, he has studied economic systems and social structures in the urban South and burgeoning Latino communities in the Southwest. What he strives for on behalf of his clients and their communities is what we all want: prosperity, understanding and respect.

He received a lifetime of service award from the Appalachian Studies Association in 2009, which joined other career highlights that include induction into the Kentucky Civil Rights Hall of Fame. In October 2021, his most recent book, “The Harlan Renaissance: Stories of Black Life in Appalachian Coal Towns,” was published by West Virginia University Press.

Dr. Turner earned a BS in Sociology from the University of Kentucky, Masters in Sociology and a PhD in Sociology and Anthropology from Notre Dame University and attended the Foreign Affairs Scholars Program at Howard University. His post doctoral studies were done at the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University.

Today, Dr. Turner and his wife, Vivian – the retired President of the R.J. Reynolds Foundation in Winston-Salem, N.C. – live near their children and grandchildren in Houston.

In January 2022, he was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the National Trust for the Humanities in Washington D.C.