Grover Jennings says that six months ago he applied for a job at the Mary Helen mine and was apparently accepted, but that when he went back for his physical, Clyde Goitis, an official at the mine, said, "Buddy, there just ain't no way I can do anything for you. Outlining the legal framework for labor unions and management relations to improve the working conditions for workers. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners' sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs. But relatives did come and take the children. Only three of the families in the camp have indoor toilets. Soon after the "Battle of Evarts," novelist Theodore Dreiser led a citizens' group to Harlan County to find and publicize the bloody facts. Mr. I'm standing at 2800 feet above sea level. We soon get into a discussion about Dreiser's 1931 inquiry. There's water in the mine because the pumps often won't work. Now, Tony Boyle is among those who have been convicted of complicity in the murders, and Arnold Miller is the head of the revamped union. They want portal-to-portal pay from the time they enter the mine until they leave it. The company also agreed to abide by any agreement reached between the . There were shots exchanged and all three deputies and one striker were killed. Trailer parks called Walnut Grove, Mobile Manor, and Mesa Village Mobile Manor. Before the first meeting of the Citizens Inquiry, we sit around and talk with the Inquiry chairman, Daniel Pollitt, a professor of law at the University of North Carolina. "We run because we wanted to testify, and if we hadn't run, he woulda had us in jail." Back in my motel room, a gathering place, Bernie Aaronson of UMW says that the union is paying strike benefits and medical bills for the 160 strikers. A federal bankruptcy judge ruled that the company could leave damages to the environment, abandon assets, and not pay the coal miners owed wages. There had been several clashes with the "scabs," the mine guards, and the state police, Kahn says. Project Summary. Resources | Harlan Coal Scrip But you must remember I am an immoral man. No, Yarborough says; it just serves as a central clearing house, so that job applicants won't have to go around and apply at each of the mines separately. Darrell Deaton, president of the Brookside UMW local, says he was caught in a belt line last year because he had to work alone, without a helper. Movie Review: Harlan County, USA (1976) - organizing.work An essay on The Harlan County War : r/history He run all the way down the stairs and out of the jail." Nannie Rainey says, "I told him if he got my children, he was gonna haveta take me too." Even though things were doing better for the unions in Harlan County, there was still civil unrest. After nearly 40 years of working in coalmines, David . In Harlan County, Kentucky, the 1931 Battle of Evarts ended in four deaths. It is home to lawyers, doctors and coal operators; it has a hospital, several banks and a few fast-food . It doesn't seem like enough. He discusses the formation and activities of the Harlan County Coal Operators Association . 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. How does the Harlan County Coal Operators Association fit into the picture? The Price of Coal, Part II - kentuckymonthly.com When McQueen was hurt, his foreman drove him to the hospital and left him there, and he was two hours hitchhiking home. 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. The county was once part of Knox County, only becoming official in 1819. There were ten lodges that were chartered for the National Miners Union. Yarborough comes out of a staff meeting and ushers us hack to a large, paneled meeting room with folding tables and chairs. Some of the women cut switches and joined the picketers. As the motorcade approached a single shot rang out in the air. What did the foremen say on those occasions? The Price of Coal, Part II. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. There is a hard edge in her voice, and her blue-gray eyes are flashing. 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. An investigation was conducted on Terrorism in the Kentucky Coal Fields. Funeral Wednesday March 1 at 11 a.m. at Grays Knob Bible Church. Harlan County, KY, coal miners win affiliation with UMWA union, United They point out that most of the big coal companies, such as U.S. Steel and others, have signed UMW contracts, but that the smaller companies of eastern Kentucky have held out. I have been married to David W. Sergent since May 4, 2013. ", What about federal inspection? That means, among other things, an average daily wage of $45. 2011: $1,161,330. Make your practice more effective and efficient with Casetext's legal research suite. The group publishes policy papers on the benefits of coal for Kentucky and sponsors the "Friends of Coal" initiative. I have attended the University of Kentucky. Done Citation. "I don't try to blacklist anybody," he says. Brophy's was the last reform insurgency against UMW leadership until Joseph Yablonski's fatal try. One of the towns that were a refuge was Evarts, Kentucky. Partial Transcript: August 27, '86. 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. We drive to the Evarts Community Center and report to the other members of the Citizens Inquiry. Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. The warrant was never served. Willard Wirtz says that it is important to remember that one side of the dispute felt confident enough about their case to arrange to spread it before the widest possible audience. "Not at all," Yarborough says. Looking for protection by the Kentucky National Guard, many were surprised to find that they broke the picket lines instead. We stop for fish and chips at a chain-operated Long John Silver's Sea Food Shoppe, as out of place in the Cumberlands as a clam in a spruce tree. The accident was investigated by Rufus Bailey, Harlan, district mine inspector of the State Department of Mines and Minerals, and James Bryson, safety director, Harlan County Coal Operators Association. Herndon J. Evans, the editor of the Pineville Sun, argued, The troubles of the coal industry had their inception in war times. She doesn't know where she will go when the camp is closed. 8 N.L.R.B. As part of his New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented and had passed the National Industrial Act. 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. Violence erupted that would periodically repeat itself for the next eight years. Miner Curtis Cress, 34, says towns that . They just laughed about it, and we kept on cuttin' coal. 2012: $1,552,717. Source Citation [ }] Descriptive Note Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest. Harlan County War History, Impact, The Free Encyclopedia 1 negative : glass ; 4 x 5 in. That year, annual wages dropped from $1,235 to $749. Sheriff T. R. Middleton replaced Blair under the pro-union campaign platform. Leroy Helton says miners often have to splice electrical cable, even though they're not qualified to do so. Sometimes, they'll be a black scum on the rag." The Brookside labor dispute erupted spontaneously soon after Miller's election. It was two o'clock on a Monday morning when the accident occurred, and he'd been in the mine., more than twelve hours. Many of the houses have no running water, and these families have to carry all their water from a common outdoor spigot. He says that wages are no longer a problem and that the amount of the royalty to be paid into the UMW Welfare & Retirement Fund is not crucially important. After this, the first strike occurred, in which only about 13% of strikers showed up to work. The miners charge that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is behind Eastover's refusal to sign a contract. . The letter states that Eastover has now raised the wages in their other mines to the UMW scale and is paying the miners for time spent with the mine moving to and from the face of the coal. Hell in Harlan - front page the foreman would just say, "We gotta run coal. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. A Brief History of Harlan County, USA | Labor Notes United States Washington D.C. District of Columbia Washington D.C . Harlan County in eastern Kentucky, which has been brought out into the spotlight this summer by the violence with which the local Coal Operators' Association has carried on this attack, is, as far as I can find out, a pretty good medium exhibit of the entire industry: living conditions are better than in Alabama and perhaps a little worse . And lastly, the Harlan Fox Mining Co - presumably derived from the Harlan Fox Coal Co - was in operation from 1925-1932. The aftermath of this battle led to wider strikes in the Harlan County area. When drafting these articles, I found that many things have not been taught to the future generations about the struggles for coal miner rights have been in the Appalachian Mountains. Bill Doan says, "When I got hurt, I couldn't find Jim Miller, the man who had charge of the sick fund." They had no safety committee, the miners say, and the federal reports bear them out. The Red Cross eventually became involved in the county along with several local charities. June 17th of that same year, the first strike was over as the last miner had returned to work. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. I have taken several classes in Journalism as well as in the Appalachian History, Literature, and Sociology during my time at those schools. Soon enough, most miners had gone on strike out of solidarity. In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. The bosses wouldn't go in, but I've. Another press member criticizes Barbara Bode for having raised a clenched fist during the women's testimony. "We've took about all we can take," he says. Genders. The local grand jury returned an indictment against Dreiser for adultery, but by that time Dreiser had finished his work and had left the county on the train. Evarts welcomed the miners because it was filled with spurned politicians and business owners who wished to see the company stores and company men in political positions vanish. The Harlan County Coal Operators Association, still functioning today, spent nearly a half million dollars from 1927 to 1938 to combat unionism, most of it going to pay strongarm men to terrorize the miners and their families. This Day in Labor History: February 16, 1931 Harlan County U.S.A. (1976) - Plot - IMDb She says that she and some of the other women hid out last night to avoid being served with a contempt citation from Judge Hogg's court. . Those with running water rent for around $20 a month, plus electricity. The miners speak of other dissatisfactions with Eastover and the old Southern Labor Union contract. A Committee was formed and conducted by Activist Theodore Dreiser under the auspices of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP). Nannie Rainey takes us into her four-room house where she and her husband and five children live. The Harlan County coal miners campaigned and fought to organize their workplaces and better their wages and working conditions. For a time after the hearing, he says, it appeared that Duke had softened. Life After Coal in Harlan County, U.S.A. - In These Times But negotiations for a contract with Eastover soon broke down, and on July 30 the miners at Brookside began the strike that now, as we arrive, is in its eighth month. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. 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. If those under them behave in an approved manner then they receive housing, work, food, and other perks of their position. Altogether, it is a heavy financial burden for the UMW. Enforcing the operators' political will, both within and outside the law, was the Harlan County Coal Operators Association. In Harlan County, Kentucky, are some of our country's richest natural resourcesand some of its poorest people. And, all around, there are the rolling mountains, covered with second-growth timber. The airline magazine contains an article on southern skiing, a feature on hot, winter drinks for the "Piedmont palate," an article on how tough it is to be thirty-three and middle-class today, and a success story about an Atlanta bra, sleepwear, girdle, and pantie company. Grace Elizabeth Hale. The women spent the night. Three of the federal reports state that there was no safety committee at Brookside, as required by law. Bobby Simpson, 79, has been blind for more than a half-century, but still managed to shovel coal. Harry Simms, who was a Young Communist League organizer was killed in Harlan. Several folk singers and other artists toured the United States to raise money during the strikes. Here and there, we also see white-blossoming pear and dogwood trees. Mrs. Herschel Gaw, wife of the ailing jailer, locked them all up. Why haven't the car bodies been removed from the highway and the streets? They exercised their powers with impunity and operated under Sheriff J.H. Bobby's wife, Becky, who died in 2013, was a lifelong advocate for the people of Harlan County. PDF "I Am a Union Woman": Gender, Class, and Folk Music in The Harlan She speaks in a soft, pleasant voice. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. She pays $10 a month for rent and $10 a month for electricity. Neither will Dr. Robert Coles, psychiatrist and author of Children of Crisis. Mr. Blanton explained the reasoning behind coal camps. After the Battle of Evarts, the Red Cross and the United Mine Workers Union refused to help the striking men on the basis that it was now an industrial conflict that needed to be resolved internally. On Friday, March 25, a continuous mining machine operator was killed by a wall collapse at the Huff Creek No. They say no action has been taken on this report. Home - Harlan County We come into Harlan County at dusk. It reports that "Piedmont" is an adjective derived.from Italian words that literally mean "formed at the foot of the mountains." If you wouldn't do it, they'd just say, 'Get your bucket.' It is an area of Kentucky that you only go to if you are intentionally going to the county. Big Boy. It was a nearly decade-long conflict, lasting from 1931 to 1939. . Prior to the strike, the pay of the Brookside miners started and stopped at the face of coal. Kahn says that the miners were encouraged by Eastover's management, headed by Norman Yarborough, to join a small "company union," the Southern Labor Union. We never would find out what happened. However, the battle continues to this day. ", We break for lunch, prepared by the women of the Evarts Community Center. Bill Doan says that the roof bolts often didn't have enough torque on them, sometimes causing roof falls as high as thirty-five feet above the regular ceiling, and that once he complained about this to the visiting inspector in the presence of his foreman. "Boss walks up and says, 'We've got to make this mine look good now, boys; the inspector's comin','" Jerry Johnson says. (Brookside) were the only two mines of the Harlan County owner/operators association who rejected a 10% pay increase in 1933. These disputes were still brewing when on December 8, 1934, the United Mine Workers Union was threatened by deputies and mine bosses. It is clear that these women have been a main factor in keeping the mine shut down. With this Supreme Court ruling, all but one of the open shops in Harlan County went back to the previous mine operations. HARLAN COUNTY COAL OPERATORS ASSOCIATION. It does not store any personal data. Past that, the other undulating ridges are blue and hazy. This series of skirmishes and strikes, lasting from early 1931 into 1939, began because of the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association's (HCCOA) decision to cut miners' wages by 10%. Pistol Annies - Harlan County Coal Lyrics | Genius Lyrics He says that, standing. Harlan county coal hi-res stock photography and images - Alamy 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." So we lay down in the road." Since the county began mining, over one billion tons of coal have There is no water in the house. ~~ David Sergent. Interview with B. W. Whitfield, Jr., February 9, 1989 SPOKEdb He is a sturdily built, self-assured man of about fifty, with a strong, square jaw and a rough, weathered face. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". These interviews with major coal operators document their personal histories and the history of the coal industry in eastern Kentucky during the twentieth century. There were constant beatings of the miners by the Sheriffs deputies. Burning Up People to Make Electricity - The Atlantic 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. No one knows who fired the first shot but when it was over four were . 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. Some seventy-five state policemen were on hand as the crowd gathered. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. The members of the Inquiry panel leave the Community Center to visit the coal camp at Brookside-rows of delapidated frame houses, identical except for their weathering gray, green, red, and beige paint. The Citizens Inquiry meets in the attractive, river-rock Evarts Community Center, directly across the Clear Fork from the site of the 1931 "Battle of Evarts." Overturned car bodies everywhere. The motorcade stopped and the deputies got out of their cars to return fire. [Verse 2] I got 27 peopl coming over to this house. Cite. Sheriff Blair was voted out of his office in 1933 and died just a year later. 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. 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. Harlan Fuel Co, 8 N.L.R.B. 25 | Casetext We hope that our hearings will help hold down violence. 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. Each contract varied from mine to mine. The Coal Strike of 1902: Turning Point in U.S. Policy Sudie Crusenberg, a plain woman in a cotton dress, gives us some idea of what life is like for a coal-mining family. KCA traces its origin to a statewide association of coal operators who united their efforts in 1942. The men and women were released on good behavior. Up at seven on a Monday morning, I walk out onto the balcony of my motel room. Harlan | Kentucky, United States | Britannica
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