Roberta Flack, Please come Home??

I see Black Mountain, North Carolina (near Asheville) now has its own news website - Black Mountain News. As its name implies Black Mountain, NC (zip code 27811) is up in the mountains. What too many of us don't know is that reknowned singer/songwriter ("Killing Me Softly")  Roberta Flack is a native of western North Carolina and of Black Mountain. (For a better idea of where Black Mountain is, just click on the tiny map.) 

A lot of Black Americans who know a bit about her think Roberta is originally from Washington, DC. Yes, she did go to Howard University and before becoming famous she taught music in DC public schools. But R. Flack is a homegirl from the mountains. And consequently what at least one of us - namely me, with family roots in the same place - would like to know is whether after many, many decades and at least a couple of centuries there's (yet) any place of respect and belonging for us in these western North Carolina & East Tennessee mountain communities our Black American families are from. Just like Roberta Flack we have deep roots in Southern Appalachia USA. All we ask now is some kind of positive sign.