Willard Wirtz asks how it will all come out, how the strike will end. Mrs. Herschel Gaw, wife of the ailing jailer, locked them all up. We first hear from a number of the striking miners about safety conditions in the Brookside mine. Strikebreakers were often beaten. Find the perfect harlan county coal stock photo, image, vector, illustration or 360 image. 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. I'm standing at 2800 feet above sea level. 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. But I ain't leaving because this is my home.". Why wasn't the fuse replaced at once? Others claim that his death was caused by an election concerning slot machines into the county. 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. I don't like- workin' in them kind of conditions." Altogether, it is a heavy financial burden for the UMW. The Harlan County coal miners campaigned and fought to organize their workplaces and better their wages and working conditions. Partial Transcript: August 27, '86. Others say they intend to speak and write about what they have heard. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association, were run as open shops from October 27, 1933 - March 31, 1935. The next morning the toothpicks were still in place, it was said. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. [Verse 2] I got 27 peopl coming over to this house. All during the day they worked in shifts, trying to penetrate to the point where the explosion occurred. "A gun thug pulled a gun on us, and I broke a switch over his head, and the little gun thug pulled out," Lois Scott says matter-of-factly. Only to be escorted to the county line and told not to return. Wirtz says that his arbitration experience tells him that if Eastover really wants to negotiate in good faith, the remaining issues, tough as they are, can probably be worked out. I have two children and four grandchildren from a previous marriage. I remind her of what Bill Doan has said: "You work with one eye on the roof, one eye on your job, and your mind's outside.". Yarborough says that he will not agree to the contract applying to Eastover's subcontractors. 3.' "Here at Brookside, if you called someone from SLU, he might come in a week, he might come in two weeks, but when he did come, he'd go into Eastover's office and talk for an hour," Bill Doan says. 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. The company will probably demand a new election. There was a scuffle when a state police captain tried to remove one of the women, she says, adding, "Captain Cromer did get hit several times; I hit him with a stick myself." No. The Brookside labor dispute erupted spontaneously soon after Miller's election. Midway in the trial, Judge Hogg dismissed the jury and directed a verdict of guilty. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. This caused the clergy to denounce the union. Harry Caudill, attorney and author of Night Comes to the Cumberlands, will not be able to join us in Harlan because of legal business. Nannie Rainey says, "I told him if he got my children, he was gonna haveta take me too." It is also women's day before the Citizens In-quiry. Soon after the "Battle of Evarts," novelist Theodore Dreiser led a citizens' group to Harlan County to find and publicize the bloody facts. safety director for the Harlan County Coal Operators Association; Moss Paterson, chief of the State Bureau of Mines and Minerals, and State and Federal mine inspectors. Harlan, city, seat of Harlan county, southeastern Kentucky, U.S., in the Cumberland Mountains, on the Clover Fork Cumberland River. There is a hard edge in her voice, and her blue-gray eyes are flashing. 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. He fined the UMW $20,000. Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. On top of that, we learn later, the union is spending $108,000 a year for medical and hospital coverage for the striking miners and their families. Outlining the legal framework for labor unions and management relations to improve the working conditions for workers. The main problem, he says, is that the company wants a "no-strike" clause, so that the union cannot strike during the contract period. The most shocking moment in Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) looks at first like an abstract painting. Over one thousand shots were exchanged during those fifteen minutes. They file with us copies of specific federal safety violation reports, and they say that nothing was ever done to correct these violations. Miners laid in an ambush on the day of May 5, 1931, near the Evarts railroad crossing. Leroy Helton says miners often have to splice electrical cable, even though they're not qualified to do so. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. A thousand feet below me lies a small, green valley, partly shrouded by the morning mist. The sign man for R C Cola has worked this territory well. Seen 'em carried out on a stretcher," she says. 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. We hope that you have enjoyed our stop in Bloody Harlan and the history of the longest and still ongoing coal struggles of the United States. [videorecording] Contributor(s): Kopple, Barbara; First-Run Features (Firm) Cabin Creek Films; Publication details: New York : First Run Features, 1976. . It was settled in 1819 by Virginians led by Samuel Howard and was known as Mount Pleasant until renamed in 1912 for Major Silas Harlan, who was killed during the American Revolution at the Battle of Blue Licks (August 19, 1782). The Kentucky Coal Association is an IRS designated 501 (c) (6) nonprofit organization that aims to educate its members and the public of coal production and safety in the state of Kentucky. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". Si says Harlan is a dry countyno legal liquor and no beer. 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. How does the Harlan County Coal Operators Association fit into the picture? There was an addition to where miners could choose their own representation for these negotiations. The miners and the coal owners were still having disputes. It is too early for dolor. These charities began to give aid to blacklisted miners who were unable to find employment as the soup kitchens had closed once the NMU had closed its doors. If you wouldn't do it, they'd just say, 'Get your bucket.' It is unclear who fired that shot but both sides claim that the other side did it. In response, the United Mine Workers of America attempted to organize the miners. 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. One of the better houses is already being demolished. Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. But, I say, even without further investigation of each of the complaints, it is possible to conclude that fear is an everyday part of the miners' lives. Nobody knows how long the UMW can keep paying strike benefits. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. Working barns of gray-black weathered wood. "But if they call me and ask if a man works for me, I simply say yes or no.". Some seventy-five state policemen were on hand as the crowd gathered. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. You come out of there lookin' like a hog that's been rootin' in the mud.' They had no safety committee, the miners say, and the federal reports bear them out. We hope that our hearings will help hold down violence. They lobby in Frankfort and Washington and sponsor an annual "Coal Miners Day" to try to get more high school students interested in mining engineering. On February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association reduced wages for miners in that part of eastern Kentucky by 10 percent. Bobby Simpson, 79, has been blind for more than a half-century, but still managed to shovel coal. "I cain't get a job nowhere in this county. 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. New subdivisions named Tall Oaks and Colonial Heights. At first, there were little battles with gunshots being exchanged between the strikers and the private guards, and the local law enforcement agents. Trailer parks called Walnut Grove, Mobile Manor, and Mesa Village Mobile Manor. I've talked to Norman Yarborough, and you ain't bringing no union down here. Big Boy. "Then he'd come out looking like a sheep-killing dog and get in his truck and run. "This whole country is like a layer cake," Si Kahn says, "a layer cake of shale, coal, and sandstone. Now and then, there is a neat, new frame house or a Pic and Pay market between scattered tarpaper shacks. There is a suit still in litigation. Is that the only objection that is holding up a settlement? Harry Simms, who was a Young Communist League organizer was killed in Harlan. Overturned car bodies everywhere. Wanted to be able to spend their money at a store of their choice besides the Black Mountain Coal Company store. The miners charge that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is behind Eastover's refusal to sign a contract. 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. Throughout 1931, violence sprouted between miners 1 mine in Evarts, in Harlan County, Kentucky. They were convicted on charges of conspiracy to murder. HARLAN COUNTYHarlan County, Kentucky, is a rural county located in a major coal-mining region in the Appalachian Mountains. Miner Curtis Cress, 34, says towns that . This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. 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. If those under them behave in an approved manner then they receive housing, work, food, and other perks of their position. 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. When McQueen was hurt, his foreman drove him to the hospital and left him there, and he was two hours hitchhiking home. Where will the families go? 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. Eastover agreed to sign the 1971 wage pact of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association which is in force at 1,200 mines. She talks about the women being armed with sticks, mace . Why is garbage left on the roadway? Many of the houses have no running water, and these families have to carry all their water from a common outdoor spigot. 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. Louis Stacy that he has several times been running a defective roofbolting machine when word came that inspector was on his way. It is clear that these women have been a main factor in keeping the mine shut down. 1931, only $13.5 million. (Eastover offered fifty cents a ton.) Paternalism is the practice of people who have a business or other authority to restrict the freedoms of those who are subordinate to them. Segment Synopsis: Lois Scott continues her conversation from her previous interview. . This law was enacted to try to reverse the hardships to those who were out of a job because of the economic collapse of the Great Depression. "With all those state police, we knew we had three choices," she says. The women say they then organized a "sunrise worship service" to begin at 4:30 on the morning of October 23, on the railroad tracks across the highway from the picket line. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. Biographical History . : The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! Horn's letter questions the fair-mindedness of the inquiry members. Pay ranged from $17 to $32 day, the average being $25. Miners die, and last year was the deadliest in American coal mines in more than a decade. I have taken several classes in Journalism as well as in the Appalachian History, Literature, and Sociology during my time at those schools. An open shop is where union membership is allowed but not mandated to work at that location. On May 5, 1931 the pot boiled over; in Harlan County Kentucky, heavily armed deputies and company men, called "gun thugs" by miners, confronted disgruntled union men on a road near Evarts. Our drive takes us upstream along the yellow-brown Clear Fork River. She's been picketing with the other women. And I can't get you off of that couch. Eight miners were sentenced to life in prison for the actions that were taken on May 5, 1931. 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." ", Bill McQueen says that when the shuttle's lights and brakes were not working and the inspector was coming, the foreman would say, "Park it." . "The personal is political" was a rallying cry of second wave feminism. He hopes the other side will do the same. October 31, 2016. The nearest ridge is green with spruce and pine. Perched atop Inspiration Mountain is the modern Mount Aire Motel. Their foothold there ultimately ended because the local clergy who were the labor organizers found out that the union was communist in nature and held animosity toward religion. This was not just a flashy slogan, and the truth of it is . The mining company had ordered a motorcade to deliver food and supplies to the strikebreakers known as Scabs. I was born in Florida and grew up in Burdine, Kentucky. He is dressed more like a miner than a mining executive. Project Summary. 8 N.L.R.B. 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. 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. The decade-long conflict between miners and the coal operators who adamantly resisted unionization has been immortalized in folksong by Florence Reece and Aunt Molly Jackson, contemplated in prose by Theodore Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson, and long been obscured by . The miners charge that Eastover has hired what they call "gun thugs." These disputes were still brewing when on December 8, 1934, the United Mine Workers Union was threatened by deputies and mine bosses. 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.". "If we could monitor these inspections, perhaps we could cut down on the fatalities," he says. 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. The men and women were released on good behavior. ("Tony") Boyle for the national presidency of the UMW in 1972 in an election closely supervised by the federal government. Whitfield recalls working in his father's coal mines during the first years of commercial mining in Harlan County, and he describes the conditions. There are very few vacant houses in Harlan County and virtually no available land to build on. As part of his New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented and had passed the National Industrial Act. Sadly, the state and federal troops would occupy the county several times. Among coal miners, Harlan County, Kentucky, is known as "Bloody Harlan." Harlan, district mine inspector of the State Department of Mines and Minerals, and James Bryson, safety director, Harlan County Coal Operators Association. 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. Genders. "Try walking out of there, carrying a man with a broken back," one of the miners says. America in the Harlan County Mine Wars, 1931-1939 Carletta A. Bush Early accounts of the Harlan County mine wars place the inability of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) to establish a permanent foothold in the county, first at the feet of of the Harlan County Coal Operators Association (HCCOA) and secondly at 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. Yarborough is tough and unyielding. When Barbara finishes her answer, Wirtz raises a clenched fist and says, "Right on!" On one excuse or another, such as not having personnel readily available to accompany the inspector into the mine, the company can delay the inspection. Bobby's wife, Becky, who died in 2013, was a lifelong advocate for the people of Harlan County. Why are people allowed to dump raw sewage in the streams? It was two o'clock on a Monday morning when the accident occurred, and he'd been in the mine., more than twelve hours. Four men were arrested in connection with this murder. An investigation was conducted on Terrorism in the Kentucky Coal Fields. Sheriff T. R. Middleton replaced Blair under the pro-union campaign platform. Harlan County Coal Miners Deaths 1940-1949 1940 1940 Hayes, Petry - Harlan Central Coal Company Totz No. The distance a miner had to walk and how time was looked at was in 15-minute increments. ", "They've done discriminated me," Grover Jennings continues. "Not at all," Yarborough says. "The danger's just the same," they say. Tuesday morning: Norman Yarborough has agreed to meet some of our group. Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. Betty Eldridge is a mildmannered, well-dressed woman of about forty. Here at Kentucky Tennessee Living we fully support the coal miners and their families. In June of 1973, in a National Labor Relations Board election, the miners at Brookside voted 113 to 55 to affiliate with the United Mine Workers. Several folk singers and other artists toured the United States to raise money during the strikes. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. or smaller. Soon enough, most miners had gone on strike out of solidarity. Theoretically, even operators' and owners' children were . There was no functioning safety committee Medical and retirement benefits were minimal and unreliable. Mine operators viciously opposed miners' efforts to unionize, particularly in Harlan County. The prospects for settlement do not look good unless Duke begins to feel public pressure. He said that when the coal industry was at its height in 1928, the peak of . The group included John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson, and a number of other writers and artists. 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. The Sheriff reportedly got rich on payoffs from the companies, and he used 181 mine company gunmen as special deputies. Unlike the previous Coal Wars that took place in West Virginia with the Paint-Creek Strike of 1912 and Matewan that lasted for a year or two. Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features. 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. Killed - 12. 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. Kentucky communities discussed include Artemus, Burdine, Jenkins, Jellico, Van Lear, and Wheelwright; and Kentucky counties include Bell, Clay, Floyd, Harlan . Two hundred people crowd. McQueen says that in late 1972 he burned his fingers to the bone on a switchbox where a blown fuse had been hot-wired. Rev. In 1970, Joseph Yablonski had led a rank-and-file revolt against Boyle, and Yablonski and his wife and daughter had been brutally murdered by killers hired with union funds. On Jan. 25, 1890, a new union, the United Mine Workers of America, was formed, and in 1903 its young president, John Mitchell, led the union on a successful 24-week strike. The radical ideology of the union began gaining some ground in the mountains. Yarborough replies. The aftermath of this battle led to wider strikes in the Harlan County area. Lifelong resident of Harlan. There are very few vacant houses in the county. He is a sturdily built, self-assured man of about fifty, with a strong, square jaw and a rough, weathered face. 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. He discusses the formation and activities of the Harlan County Coal Operators Association . Our driver points out Norman Yarborough's two-story frame house, across the highway from the camp and up out of the river bottom. Barbara Kopple 's Academy Award-winning Harlan County USA unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners' strike in a small Kentucky town. The SLU was largely seen as serving the interests of the mine owners rather than the workers. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. It is beautiful in Harlan County, as pretty as any place in the world. The remaining workforce then went on strike as a sign of solidarity with those that were fired from their jobs. The committee has invited owners as well as workers to participate in the hearings, but the impression we get is that management will not appear. Don Dalton, UMW Safety Director for Region Six, explains this. Carl Horn of Duke Power and Arnold Miller of the UMW had talked, and negotiations had been resumed. 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. Based on this new Act, from October 27, 1933, to March 31, 1935, the mines ran as open shops. The miners say that they want their own safety committee, elected by the miners, as the standard UMW contract provides, with the right to walk out, losing their pay, when there is eminent danger in the mine. In response to the violence, the Kentucky National Guard was called upon and arrived for the first time in the county to try to stem the violence. Established in 1916, its membership consisted of nearly all the large mining companies, and it represented the major political force in the county. 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. Some of the miners also claim that the state police have tried to intimidate them. One of the towns that were a refuge was Evarts, Kentucky. The warrant was never served. Before this war was over it is not known exactly how many miners, coal operators, deputies, and bosses would be killed. No wonder R C Cola has so many signs everywhere. 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." There are still ongoing strikes today and the violence in Harlan County Continues. At these locations, the mine wages began to be comparable to other jobs around the nation.