Others claim that his death was caused by an election concerning slot machines into the county. When filmmaker Barbara Kopple traveled to Harlan County, Kentucky, the resulting Academy award-winning documentary, Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) captured a historic story. CBS is represented by a camera crew, and there are a number of national reporters. We look back on the film, which screens this Sunday, February . Sadly, the state and federal troops would occupy the county several times. We agree that most of us lean toward the miners, but we think we can be fair in trying to learn the facts.
Printing - Angelfire Free shipping for many products! It was the most violent attack of the Harlan County Coal wars and the most violence would only last fifteen minutes in total but would forever change the name to Bloody Harlan. The name comes from a series of United Mine Workers strikes and labor-management battles which ended in a gunfight between deputized mine guards and miners on May 4, 1931, in the tiny community of Evarts. It doesn't seem like enough. Duke Power Company appears to be the key to breaking the deadlock in negotiations. But I ain't leaving because this is my home.". It is a warm night and at every bend in the asphalt road we hear a chorus of croaking frogs. Source Citation [ }] Descriptive Note Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest. He says that they do not need the UMW to look after them; he will do that. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". I've talked to Norman Yarborough, and you ain't bringing no union down here.
Appalachia: Coal Operators Oral History Project SPOKEdb ", What about federal inspection? Partial Transcript: August 27, '86. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. Coal companies refused to back down while the Red Cross refused to give aid . These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. . Bill McQueen says that the shuttle car into the mine usually has no brakes, and that it can only be stopped by putting it in reverse. I'm standing at 2800 feet above sea level. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. "We run because we wanted to testify, and if we hadn't run, he woulda had us in jail."
The Price of Coal, Part II - kentuckymonthly.com The most memorable of those are 1964, 1966, 1969 (The West Virginia Black Lung strike that the miners won) 1971, and the 1974 Strikes. It is the second coal mining fatality in . ", What about the Southern Labor Union? There was no standard contract for the miners. There are very few vacant houses in the county. The county was once part of Knox County, only becoming official in 1819. And I can't get you off of that couch. During the day, a man came and said that if their children weren't out of the jail by night, the welfare people would take them. To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators Association decided to cut all wages by ten percent. Some of the miners also claim that the state police have tried to intimidate them. Figure 2: Harlan County Coal Mine Employment, 2000-2016, (KYEEC, 2017) In 1942, shortly after Harlan County experienced record high coal mine employment, the county experienced is highest production levels with 15.6 million tons of coal being produced in this year (KYEEC, 2017). As correspondent Bob Simon reports, 47 miners died, six of them from just one county in eastern Kentucky . I currently live in Tennessee but my hope is to one day come back home to live in the beautiful mountains once more. Her daughter, Bessie Cornett, an attractive young brunette, says, "I'm not in jail today because you people are here." Kentucky communities discussed include Artemus, Burdine, Jenkins, Jellico, Van Lear, and Wheelwright; and Kentucky counties include Bell, Clay, Floyd, Harlan .
1940-49 Harlan Co Miners Deaths - USGenWeb sites Harlan County, Kentucky in a Post-Coal America: A Case Study Only 23 percent of those in the county over the age of twenty-five have completed high school. Get a Demo. With this Supreme Court ruling, all but one of the open shops in Harlan County went back to the previous mine operations. Other times, he says, "Roof was workin', rock was a-hangin', and it sounded like thunder. During the big coal boom in the early 1900s, Harlan County was amongst the largest contributors. A Committee was formed and conducted by Activist Theodore Dreiser under the auspices of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP). No help came to those that were in starving situations due to no money to spend on food and no admittance to the company store unless they were gainfully employed by the coal mine. It seems to me that for a great many people in Harlan County-for poor people and a lot of coal miners the whole county is a jail. He says that negotiations were broken off on November 28, 1973, because of the miners' insistence on the full terms of the standard UMW contract. Why is garbage left on the roadway? You just don't hit a woman in Harlan County." We're all involved. Whitfield's family was from Alabama where his father had been in the coal business. (There is such a provision in the standard UMW contract.). Visit us and take a step back in time to learn more about how Harlan County helped build a nation at Portal 31 Exhibition Mine tour or come experience the delight of . Cite. However, they did make a greater effort than the United Mine Workers with relief as they opened soup kitchens around the county. Horn's letter questions the fair-mindedness of the inquiry members. Filmed during the coal strike of 1974-1975, this documentary does much to capture the tension brought on by the injustice of the coal operators to the coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky.
Our History - Kentucky Coal Association Harlan County, KY, coal miners win affiliation with UMWA union, United ", Bill Doan says that he was hurt in a rockfall at 7:15 one morning and that he didn't get out of the mine until nine o'clock. They tell of two night incidents when rifle shots were fired at the picketers by unidentified persons. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. "They sent me to 'Waterhole No. "I've had the foreman to tell me to set timbers or something until the inspector got gone. Leroy Helton says he still owes a lot of bills that should have been paid by SLU. Pierce has brought the actual Courier-Journal clippings about the Dreiser inquiry and shares them with us. The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relations Act or NLRA) guaranteed the rights of workers to choose to organize. The records show that Beach was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in 1954 and sentenced to ten years in the penitentiary, that he was later charged with carrying a concealed pistol (no disposition shown), and that in 1966 he was tried and acquitted on a murder charge. Harry Caudill, attorney and author of Night Comes to the Cumberlands, will not be able to join us in Harlan because of legal business. Only to be escorted to the county line and told not to return. The company also agreed to abide by any agreement reached between the .
A Brief History of Harlan County, USA | Labor Notes However, after the dust was clear, the anti-labor coal country would end up being represented by unions. Done Citation.
Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. - Details - SNAC She doesn't know where she will go when the camp is closed. Funeral Wednesday March 1 at 11 a.m. at Grays Knob Bible Church.
Harlan County U.S.A. (1976) - Harlan County U.S.A. (1976) - User - IMDb In the throes of the Great Depression, Harlan County coal owners and operators, in an effort to expand national dependency on their fuel, chose to sell below cost. Several folk singers and other artists toured the United States to raise money during the strikes.
Harlan County War History, Impact, The Free Encyclopedia Yarborough says that he will not agree to the contract applying to Eastover's subcontractors. In response, the United Mine Workers of America attempted to organize the miners. One of the Deputies was Jim Daniels. The warrant was never served. Harlan County, Kentucky is known for two things: bituminous coal and Bloody Harlan. Now, forty-three years later, Harlan County is again gripped in a UMW strike, this time at the Brookside mine of the Eastover Mining Company, and another citizens' group has been formed. Why are people allowed to dump raw sewage in the streams? But Barbara Bode has arranged for eleven of them to come up onto the stage at the same time, and they seem to take strength from their numbers. Former Director of Harlan County Coal Operators Association. On May 24, 1931, Sheriff Blair rescinded the miners right to assemble and tear-gassed a union rally. They were convicted on charges of conspiracy to murder. Toilet paper clings to the bushes and tree limbs five or six feet up from the rushing stream. On February 16, 1931, in order to prevent operating at a loss, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. Many of the houses have no running water, and these families have to carry all their water from a common outdoor spigot. Past that, the other undulating ridges are blue and hazy. But relatives did come and take the children. The strikebreakers were under the protection of private mine guards. Mr. Blanton explained the reasoning behind coal camps. (Fifty million tons of union coal are mined in western Kentucky; only 6.5 million tons of union coal are mined in eastern Kentucky.) The mining company had ordered a motorcade to deliver food and supplies to the strikebreakers known as Scabs. He hopes the other side will do the same. In Harlan County, Kentucky, are some of our country's richest natural resourcesand some of its poorest people. Yellow-dog contracts (Contracts where the employees agreed to never organize into a union before they were employed with a coal company), company unions, blacklists, all tactics that were employed by the companies to bust up unions, and discrimination-based on union activity were all outlawed under this act. The Brookside labor dispute erupted spontaneously soon after Miller's election. October 31, 2016. In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. This caused the clergy to denounce the union. Louis Stacy that he has several times been running a defective roofbolting machine when word came that inspector was on his way. What will happen now that the first full year after the union election is ending? Bill Doan says, "When I got hurt, I couldn't find Jim Miller, the man who had charge of the sick fund." The decrease in wages, unemployment, and irregular employment caused "poverty, hunger, and disease.". They relate federal mine-safety figures which show that in 1971 the accident rate in the Brookside mine was three times the national average, and in 1972 was twice the national average. Poffitt, Jacqueline Brophy, and I meet the other members of the Citizens Inquiry in a private dining room in the Mount Aire: James David Barber, chairman of the Political Science Department at Duke University and author of The Presidential Character; Monsignor Geno Baroni, president of the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, a Catholic priest whose father is a retired Pennsylvania miner with black lung; Barbara Bode, president of the Children's Foundation in Washington; and Dr. Raymond Wheeler of Charlotte, North Carolina, president of the Southern Regional Council. Based on this new Act, from October 27, 1933, to March 31, 1935, the mines ran as open shops. In June of 1973, workers at the Brookside coal mine in Harlan County, Kentucky voted 113-55 to replace their membership in the Southern Labor Union (SLU) and join the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) union. Thirty percent of the families lack automobiles. 5355 after Local Union 4495 at Black Mountain folded up. Enforcing the operators' political will, both within and outside the law, was the Harlan County Coal Operators Association. "The way I figured it, they done that because it was just a faster, way of getting coal." . If you wouldn't do it, they'd just say, 'Get your bucket.' In the year of "the energy crisis," Coal is King again at $30 a ton. The remaining workforce then went on strike as a sign of solidarity with those that were fired from their jobs. He can't never walk again." That's an old term in Harlan County, used to describe special, plain-clothed guards. Battle of Evartshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/new-deal/national-industrial-recovery-act-of-1933/, Battle of Evartshttps://pipiwiki.com/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, Battle of Evartshttps://wiki2.org/en/Battle_of_Evarts, Harlan County Warhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_County_War, A Brief History of Harlan County, USAhttps://labornotes.org/blogs/2019/08/brief-history-harlan-county-usa, Harlan County Warhttps://everipedia.org/Harlan_County_War, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/background-coal-strike, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/local-elite, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/new-york-writers, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/national-miners-union-and-other-radical-groups, The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relations Act)https://www.thebalancecareers.com/the-wagner-act-of-1935-national-labor-relations-act-2060509#:~:text=%20The%20Wagner%20Act%20defines%20and%20prohibits%20five,or%20administration%20of%20a%20labor%20organization.%20More%20, BOMB IN AUTO KILLS KENTUCKY OFFICIAL; Harlan County Attorney Predicted Assassination for Backing Troops in Election.https://www.nytimes.com/1935/09/05/archives/bomb-in-auto-kills-kentucky-official-harlan-county-attorney.html#:~:text=HARLAN%2C%20Ky.%2C%20Sept.%204%20%28AP%29.%20%20The%20death,his%20automobile.%20View%20Full%20Article%20in%20Timesmachine%20%C2%BB, Elmon Clay Middleton https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70804679/elmon-clay-middleton, KENTUCKY HOLDS FOUR IN AUTO BOMB KILLING; Harlan Prosecutors Death Is Laid to His Fight Against Slot Machines.https://www.nytimes.com/1935/09/06/archives/kentucky-holds-four-in-auto-bomb-killing-harlan-prosecutors-death.html, Blackjewel Bankruptcy Leaves Damaged Lands and Miners Compensation in Limbo, https://ohiovalleyresource.org/2021/03/22/blackjewel-bankruptcy-finalized/, This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/?fbclid=IwAR21nYphw4Dul-_EwuAmSWgzsvPLNwsMM0FtV75j0y-mGUHq-lCZjJxZot8, For more about us, you can visit our Facebook at:https://www.facebook.com/kytnliving, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs0oV5gFzIS2JdMJ3HvTOgA, When we forget our past and who we are as a people, then we become who they say we are. Mr. Si sticks a wad of Red Man chewing tobacco in his cheek and begins to fill us in on the background of the Brookside strike. At first, heading northwest on modern Route 23, through Kingsport, Tennessee, Weber City, Virginia, and Gate City, Virginia, the sights are the same as almost everywhere else in America today. I have attended the University of Kentucky. Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. I say that the issue is whether or not the men will be allowed to have their own union to protect their safety and secure and maintain decent wages and benefits, that if enough pressure is put on Duke Power Company, maybe something will give. I've got five living children and four dead.
COMING THE BOYS OF HARLAN - The Washington Post Harlan Fuel Co, 8 N.L.R.B. 25 | Casetext Sometimes, they'll be a black scum on the rag." The aftermath of this battle led to wider strikes in the Harlan County area. This action did not go unnoticed by the labor unions and the United Mine Workers union decided to attempt to organize the already-impoverished labor force of the area. Now and then, there is a neat, new frame house or a Pic and Pay market between scattered tarpaper shacks. B.W. They had no safety committee, the miners say, and the federal reports bear them out. Here, too, are some of the richest natural resources in the countryand some of the poorest people. Duke went into the coal business directly in 1970 when it organized Eastover Mining Company as a wholly owned subsidiary and, through it, bought several mines in eastern Kentucky, including the one at Brookside. He tells me that the miners plan to picket on Wall Street, hoping to give Duke problems with its stock. They just laughed about it, and we kept on cuttin' coal. (Eastover, to repeat, now pays portal-to-portal wages for inside workers in its other mines and has raised the wages of nonstrikers to the UMW level.) 3.' Miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, have drawn national attention with their direct action occupying a railroad track to halt a coal train . If any attractive woman became interested in me, I'd think it was a very lovely thing.
Harlan County War Wiki - Everipedia Attempts to organize led to the dismissal of employees who were suspected of having leanings toward the organization and having them evicted from their family homes. New subdivisions named Tall Oaks and Colonial Heights. These women have organized a special kind of feminist movement, and the issues to them are life-and-death issues. "They didn't say nothin'; all they want's coal.' When McQueen was hurt, his foreman drove him to the hospital and left him there, and he was two hours hitchhiking home. Arnold Miller, who was an active coal miner until three years ago and is now the reform-minded president of the United Mine Workers, has asked me to serve as a member of a "Citizens Public Inquiry into the Brookside Strike.". There is a suit still in litigation. Or all you're gonna get's a chunk of Harlan County coal. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Which Side are You on? The United Mine Workers union also cited that they did not have the resources to help in the battle. They also plan to join with a North Carolina group in protesting Duke's requested rate increase, and they are going to attend the meeting of Duke's stockholders on May 30. [ citation needed ] On February 16, 1931, in order to prevent operating at a loss, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. Jacqueline Brophy is the daughter of Pat Brophy, who went into the mines when he was twelve, and who, in 1926, ran against John L. Lewis and lost. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Killed - 12. "This whole country is like a layer cake," Si Kahn says, "a layer cake of shale, coal, and sandstone. It is beautiful in Harlan County, as pretty as any place in the world. Afterwards, they gathered near the picket line at the Eastover property in Brookside. A historical marker says we are near the Little Shepherd Trail, the setting for the novel Shepherd of the Hills. The Seco Train Accident September 20, 1917, New Bank in the Coal Country Installed in 1911, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/new-deal/national-industrial-recovery-act-of-1933/, https://pipiwiki.com/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_County_War, https://labornotes.org/blogs/2019/08/brief-history-harlan-county-usa, https://www.thebalancecareers.com/the-wagner-act-of-1935-national-labor-relations-act-2060509#:~:text=%20The%20Wagner%20Act%20defines%20and%20prohibits%20five,or%20administration%20of%20a%20labor%20organization.%20More%20, https://www.nytimes.com/1935/09/05/archives/bomb-in-auto-kills-kentucky-official-harlan-county-attorney.html#:~:text=HARLAN%2C%20Ky.%2C%20Sept.%204%20%28AP%29.%20%20The%20death,his%20automobile.%20View%20Full%20Article%20in%20Timesmachine%20%C2%BB, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70804679/elmon-clay-middleton, https://www.nytimes.com/1935/09/06/archives/kentucky-holds-four-in-auto-bomb-killing-harlan-prosecutors-death.html, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/?fbclid=IwAR21nYphw4Dul-_EwuAmSWgzsvPLNwsMM0FtV75j0y-mGUHq-lCZjJxZot8, The Flatwoods Monster: Weird Appalachia Cases, Rotherwood Mansion: Weird Appalachia Cases, The Brown Mountain Ghostly Lights: Weird Appalachia Cases. The coal miners, lean and tough from Kentucky mountain life, knew how to fight back. Blair. Listen to "Harlan County Coal" from Pistol Annies' album, 'Hell of a Holiday,' out now: https://pa.lnk.to/HOAHAY Chorus:Making decorations out of shotgun she. 1 mine in Evarts, in Harlan County, Kentucky. The company will probably demand a new election. [citation needed] On February 16, 1931, in order to prevent operating at a loss, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%.
Harlan County Revisited - Memory of a Miner We never would find out what happened. June 17th of that same year, the first strike was over as the last miner had returned to work. Freda Armes says, "I run him off. Willard Wirtz says he senses that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is a major factor in the dispute, that it doesn't want a settlement with higher wages and benefits and tough safety provisions to be made by Eastover, because it fears the domino effect of such a settlement on the rest of the companies in the county. 4 . Overturned car bodies everywhere. What a marvelous view! It does not store any personal data. This was thirteen percent of the workers showing up for their scheduled work times. by Ron Soodalter. Strikebreakers were often beaten. "Yarborough says he just don't want nobody tellin' him how to run his mine," Deaton says. Bright yellow forsythia has begun to bloom in the yards of Harlan and Brookside and Evarts. I have also attended the University of Pikeville. The next morning the toothpicks were still in place, it was said. Other clippings detail the earlier bloodshed and misery in Harlan County. He is a sturdily built, self-assured man of about fifty, with a strong, square jaw and a rough, weathered face. "I've seen some hurt and some killed.
Burning Up People to Make Electricity - The Atlantic ", We break for lunch, prepared by the women of the Evarts Community Center. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
Harlan, Kentucky coal miner killed - World Socialist Web Site - wsws.org By comparison to Harlan, the Pittston strike in 1989-1990 shut down almost 70% of that company's production (and completely halted production during the Moss 3 refining plant occupation) and won back the health care benefits of around 1500 miners and their families, as well as the Coal Act of 1992 that requires all coal operators in the U . . Others say they intend to speak and write about what they have heard. Destitute miners were in no position to take a 2 wage cut; yet, in February of 1931 the newest in a long series of wage cuts occurred, reducing miners' weekly pay by 10 percent. Tuesday morning: Norman Yarborough has agreed to meet some of our group. I remind her that Duke and Eastover executives were invited, and have refused to appear before us. We drive through the streets of the town of Harlan, past the stores and houses, past the Harlan Baptist Church with a sign out front which reads: "If you are unkind, you are the wrong kind." Two more Inquiry panel members join us, Willard Wirtz, who was Secretary of Labor under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and the Reverend Max Glenn, executive director of the Commission on Religion in Appalachia. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. Documents the 1973 Kentucky coal miners' strike against the operators of the Brookside mine and the Duke Power Company, which resulted from the company's refusal to honor the . The Price of Coal, Part II. But, Aaronson says, Norman Yarborough had then called back to say, simply, that there was nothing of further interest to them in the negotiations More public pressure on Duke is needed, he says.