"Not at all," Yarborough says. Carl Horn of Duke Power and Arnold Miller of the UMW had talked, and negotiations had been resumed. We never would find out what happened. 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. The Brookside mine is capable of producing only about a half-million tons of the 15 million tons of coal Duke uses each year. He says that he will not agree to the Brookside contract applying to "all" of Eastover's operations. Forty percent of the county's dwellings lack some or all of plumbing, water, or toilet facilities. Since the county began mining, over one billion tons of coal have 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. 9:03 PM. Most of the land is owned by the mining companies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. He sentenced nine men and seven women to six months in jail and fined them $500 each. Why haven't the car bodies been removed from the highway and the streets? The remaining workforce then went on strike as a sign of solidarity with those that were fired from their jobs. Three Point, Harlan County, Kentucky September 16, 1943 No. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. 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. 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. 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. "I've got so many duns from the hospital that I just quit lookin' at them. "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. The coal miners, lean and tough from Kentucky mountain life, knew how to fight back. It read: RE-ELECT GAW, JAILER. The most memorable of those are 1964, 1966, 1969 (The West Virginia Black Lung strike that the miners won) 1971, and the 1974 Strikes. 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. No wonder R C Cola has so many signs everywhere. Sudie Crusenberg, a plain woman in a cotton dress, gives us some idea of what life is like for a coal-mining family. HARLAN COUNTY COAL OPERATORS ASSOCIATION. Mr. Nolan, a resident of Cawood, is survived by his wife, Mrs. Stella Nolan . 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. Several folk singers and other artists toured the United States to raise money during the strikes. Sheriff T. R. Middleton replaced Blair under the pro-union campaign platform. 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. "I've had the foreman to tell me to set timbers or something until the inspector got gone. On Friday, March 25, a continuous mining machine operator was killed by a wall collapse at the Huff Creek No. 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. Our driver points out Norman Yarborough's two-story frame house, across the highway from the camp and up out of the river bottom. At first, there were little battles with gunshots being exchanged between the strikers and the private guards, and the local law enforcement agents. 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. They are demanding the standard UMW provision requiring the company to pay a royalty of seventy-five cents a ton on mined coal into the UMW Welfare & Retirement Fund. 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. It was two o'clock on a Monday morning when the accident occurred, and he'd been in the mine., more than twelve hours. With the opening left by the United Mine Workers union the openly Communist (NMU) National Miners Union tried to help the miners to organize. McQueen says that in late 1972 he burned his fingers to the bone on a switchbox where a blown fuse had been hot-wired. 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. But I ain't leaving because this is my home.". The National Industrial Recovery Act only partially succeeded in accomplishing its stated goals when it was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on May 27, 1935, which was three weeks before the Act was set to expire. Darrell Deaton says there is a direct telephone line to Washington for safety complaints, "but if you identify yourself; you're gonna be out of a job.". Interviews with residents of Hazard who discuss the coal miners' union, the harassment union miners faced from large mining companies, and the unofficial strikes that are being organized in Hazard County. One night, they saw a secretary for the Dreiser group enter Dreiser's hotel room, and they placed toothpicks against the door to determine whether she ever came back out during the night. Yarborough is tough and unyielding. The Federal Government, with the Commissioner of Labor in a fact finding role, acted as a 'neutral' for the first time in contributing to settlement of the bitter coal strike. This caused the clergy to denounce the union. Past that, the other undulating ridges are blue and hazy. Dalton points out that there were 132 mine fatalities in the United States in 1973, only seventeen of them in UMW mines. After the railroad arrived in 1911 . Why is garbage left on the roadway? Sheriff Blair was voted out of his office in 1933 and died just a year later. We first hear from a number of the striking miners about safety conditions in the Brookside mine. The men's life depended on my job, but I knowed if I protested I'd a got fired. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to . There were only nine hundred miners working and 5,800 miners were idle and striking during the first strike. B.W. One of the Deputies was Jim Daniels. The Benham Coal Company records (151 cubic feet, 302 Boxes; dated 1911-1973) focus primarily on the early years of Benham Coal through the 1940s. Thirty percent of the families lack automobiles. 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. Kentucky communities discussed include Artemus, Burdine, Jenkins, Jellico, Van Lear, and Wheelwright; and Kentucky counties include Bell, Clay, Floyd, Harlan . He then answers a question he wasn't asked. Get a Demo. Duke Power Company of North Carolina, he says, is the sixth largest utility company in the world. It is thought that Middleton was assassinated for backing troops who were present in the County to protect the miners. When this strike was broken in1924, none of the non-union mines in Harlan County, all of which were members ofthe Harlan County Coal Operators Association, would employ a man from BlackMountain."Many of the men who worked at Black Mountain transferred to LocalUnion No. He said that when the coal industry was at its height in 1928, the peak of . The aftermath of this battle led to wider strikes in the Harlan County area. She pays $10 a month for rent and $10 a month for electricity. She's been picketing with the other women. I don't like- workin' in them kind of conditions." Five miles north of Harlan, we drive up Inspiration Mountain. Why wasn't the fuse replaced at once? 4 . Some of the women went to jail with the men, and some took their children with them. Bobby Simpson, 79, has been blind for more than a half-century, but still managed to shovel coal. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. He fined the UMW $20,000. A third generation coal operator, he served as President of the Harlan County Coal Operators and the Harlan Mining Institute, as Vice President of the Kentucky Coal Association and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Associated Industries of Kentucky. It is the second coal mining fatality in . The women furnish the panel with a copy of a report from the Harlan County Health Department, dated October 12, 1973, which states that the drinking water in the Eastover mining camp, where approximately thirty of the striking Brookside families live, is "highly contaminated" with fecal bacteria. "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. Garbage along the roadside. "My daddy's a retired coal miner, and he's got the black lung. "You could hunt for one, but there just weren't one there," he says. We are told that Eastover has announced its intention to tear down the mining-camp houses and move the striking miners out. The National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP) was of the American Communist Party. The accident was the second worst mine fatality in the history of Harlan County coal mining, the worst being Harlan Fuel Company . This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. I'm standing at 2800 feet above sea level. "I've been juiced a lot, and I've had to just set down thirty-five minutes because it just takes the pep out of you." With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners' sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs. During the Great Depression of the 1930s coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, struck against the coal operators for better pay and better working conditio. Lois Scott, a woman of about forty-five, begins to speak first. It has assets worth $2.5 billion. The Red Cross eventually became involved in the county along with several local charities. To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators Association decided to cut all wages by ten percent. 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. Featuring a haunting soundtrack-with legendary country . "This whole country is like a layer cake," Si Kahn says, "a layer cake of shale, coal, and sandstone. A shoulder blade and five of his ribs were broken. No. She doesn't know where she will go when the camp is closed. But is it really hurting? The unemployment rate in the county is 7 percent; that doesn't count those who have long since given up looking for the scarce or nonexistent jobs. Its initial land holdings were in the Irwin gas coal basin in Westmoreland County, but as these were exhausted the company purchased 14,000 acres of undeveloped coal land along the border of Boone and Logan Counties in West Virginia in 1923-28. . The Harlan County coal miners campaigned and fought to organize their workplaces and better their wages and working conditions. (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.) As in Germany, the AFSC used need alone to determine who got fed. The mining company had ordered a motorcade to deliver food and supplies to the strikebreakers known as Scabs. The group publishes policy papers on the benefits of coal for Kentucky and sponsors the "Friends of Coal" initiative. All during the day they worked in shifts, trying to penetrate to the point where the explosion occurred. [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%. "This troubles me; I don't sleep," Yarborough says. This was thirteen percent of the workers showing up for their scheduled work times. "I cain't get a job nowhere in this county. KCA's constitution and by-laws were adopted on April 28, 1947, "to promote the best interest of the coal mining industry in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and all those engaged therein". 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. Grace Elizabeth Hale. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". Former Director of Harlan County Coal Operators Association. She talks about the women being armed with sticks, mace . 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. Following this episode, the women say, Norman Yarborough asked Judge Hogg to hold the UMW and a number of miners and women in contempt of the Judge's order limiting the number of picketers to six. I can see twenty-five miles to the southeast, five ridges. Is the safety provision in the UMW contract the sticking point for Eastover? Whitfield recalls working in his father's coal mines during the first years of commercial mining in Harlan County, and he describes the conditions. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. And I can't get you off of that couch. United States Washington D.C. District of Columbia Washington D.C . There are still ongoing strikes today and the violence in Harlan County Continues. 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. Why are people allowed to dump raw sewage in the streams? He tells me that the miners plan to picket on Wall Street, hoping to give Duke problems with its stock. 1931, only $13.5 million. Three Harlan County incorporated towns were not owned by the coal mines, they became a sanctuary for the evicted and starving miners. He can't never walk again." 1 negative : glass ; 4 x 5 in. 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. "I don't know nothing about the electrical part." The coal companies refused to back down from their positions and change anything. This active organization is made up of those who represent the leader in the mining industry. Copy with citation. 5355, atEvarts . (Brookside) were the only two mines of the Harlan County owner/operators association who rejected a 10% pay increase in 1933. Willard Wirtz asks how it will all come out, how the strike will end. The motorcade stopped and the deputies got out of their cars to return fire. 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%. Bright yellow forsythia has begun to bloom in the yards of Harlan and Brookside and Evarts. Si says Harlan is a dry countyno legal liquor and no beer. 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. Even pop culture cannot ignore its impact with such shows as Justified. The women are nervous about testifying, afraid of retaliation. Fifty miners and their wives have at one time or another been held in contempt of this order. The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relations Act or NLRA) guaranteed the rights of workers to choose to organize. Based on this new Act, from October 27, 1933, to March 31, 1935, the mines ran as open shops. Violence erupted that would periodically repeat itself for the next eight years. They had no safety committee, the miners say, and the federal reports bear them out. 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 . 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 . Captain James Cromer of the state police later tells news reporters, "The women are a problem. ", "They've done discriminated me," Grover Jennings continues. The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! In Harlan County, Kentucky, the 1931 Battle of Evarts ended in four deaths. Yarborough tells us that the company does not now object to paying the miners for portal-to-portal time for inside mine work, but that the union wants comparability for outside workers too, in effect requiring the company to pay outside workers overtime for all work in excess of a seven and-a-quarter-hour regular day. CBS is represented by a camera crew, and there are a number of national reporters. Two hundred people crowd. It reports that "Piedmont" is an adjective derived.from Italian words that literally mean "formed at the foot of the mountains." 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. He hopes the other side will do the same. Louis Stacy that he has several times been running a defective roofbolting machine when word came that inspector was on his way. Free shipping for many products! Miners also wanted the right to organize and have a union. 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. Almost immediately after the explosion became known rescue teams, under the direction of J. F. Bryson, safety director of the Harlan County Coal Operators association, started into the entry. That commitment has never waivered, and has grown . those in the Harlan County Coal Operators . They were convicted on charges of conspiracy to murder. My brother died at the age of forty. A Brief History of Harlan County, USA. New subdivisions named Tall Oaks and Colonial Heights. Soon after the "Battle of Evarts," novelist Theodore Dreiser led a citizens' group to Harlan County to find and publicize the bloody facts. 8 N.L.R.B. Enforcing the operators' political will, both within and outside the law, was the Harlan County Coal Operators Association. On February 16, 1931, in order to prevent operating at a loss, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. If for example, they did not behave in the way the companies wanted them to, they could lose all their benefits up to and including their jobs. . The most shocking moment in Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) looks at first like an abstract painting. And we're burning up people to make electricity. Other clippings detail the earlier bloodshed and misery in Harlan County. 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. The radical ideology of the union began gaining some ground in the mountains. The men and women were released on good behavior. What will happen now that the first full year after the union election is ending? 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." They just laughed about it, and we kept on cuttin' coal. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association, were run as open shops from October 27, 1933 - March 31, 1935. Our drive takes us upstream along the yellow-brown Clear Fork River. 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 miners charge that Eastover has hired what they call "gun thugs." If any attractive woman became interested in me, I'd think it was a very lovely thing. 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. KCA traces its origin to a statewide association of coal operators who united their efforts in 1942. 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. James Sizemore says that frequently float dust, which is dangerously explosive, would get too heavy in the mine, and he would complain, but that. If those under them behave in an approved manner then they receive housing, work, food, and other perks of their position. Source Citation [ }] Descriptive Note Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest. Faith Primitive Baptist Church. (Eastover offered fifty cents a ton.) Theoretically, even operators' and owners' children were . He does say, I think primarily for the record, that he would like to see negotiations begin again. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. The Harlan Daily Enterprise story of September 16, 1943 is serious and straightforward: 17 miners are trapped a mile underground and help is on the way.. Much of the story is about help. There was no standard contract for the miners. The company will probably demand a new election. Wanted to be able to spend their money at a store of their choice besides the Black Mountain Coal Company store. One of the better houses is already being demolished. It was Miller who defeated W. A. Lifelong resident of Harlan. "The way I figured it, they done that because it was just a faster, way of getting coal." Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. Pay ranged from $17 to $32 day, the average being $25. 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. There's water in the mine because the pumps often won't work. The judge's fines and sentences were appealed. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. We gather back in Evarts and announce that our report will be ready in two or three weeks. Typical of counties with low income, counties where the mine companies own everything and pay low taxes, our UMW driver says. The miners and the coal owners were still having disputes. We feel that we have provided a national forum for the miners to tell their story. I look at the government statistics once more. It is beautiful in Harlan County, as pretty as any place in the world. 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. The UMW union called in the National Guard to help them. The latest unrest in Harlan County came when in July of 2019, Black jewel LLC filed for bankruptcy and liquidation. Whitfield's family was from Alabama where his father had been in the coal business. Harlan County. He is dressed more like a miner than a mining executive. Interview Summary. No concessions or deals were made between the two factions and the membership of the United Mine Workers union plummeted. Coal companies refused to back down while the Red Cross refused to give aid . They are merely a service organization, Yarborough says. It will be a two-hour, winding drive through the Cumberland Mountains to the town of Harlan. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Daniels was one of the most hated deputies in the county due to his anti-union views. The miners speak of other dissatisfactions with Eastover and the old Southern Labor Union contract. At Brookside, this would amount to $400,000 a year. Though the union had made substantial inroads into the Central Appalachian coalfields by 1930, when miners in Bell and Harlan Counties went out on strike in early May, 1931, the UMWA removed its support. In 1973 the 13-month Brookside Strike brought almost 200 workers to battle Eastover Coal Company's Brookside Mine and Prep Plant, a company owned by Duke Power. ", We break for lunch, prepared by the women of the Evarts Community Center. "If we could monitor these inspections, perhaps we could cut down on the fatalities," he says. Soon enough, most miners had gone on strike out of solidarity. Nannie Rainey says, "I told him if he got my children, he was gonna haveta take me too." Another press member criticizes Barbara Bode for having raised a clenched fist during the women's testimony. Altogether, it is a heavy financial burden for the UMW. Trailer parks called Walnut Grove, Mobile Manor, and Mesa Village Mobile Manor. Their activities began with a demonstration and march in Harlan on September 27, 1973. 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. She talks about hiding behind cars on the picket line for protection from the "gun thugs." She talks about a standoff against Basil Collins and the scabs and gun thugs. 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. Is that the only objection that is holding up a settlement? The Harlan County Coal War is one of the . Before this war was over it is not known exactly how many miners, coal operators, deputies, and bosses would be killed. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". Interment at Resthaven Cemetery, Keith, Ky. Visitation 6-9 p.m. at the Grays Knob Bible Church. Nonunion workers were attempting to leave the mine. Harry Simms, who was a Young Communist League organizer was killed in Harlan. They fed strikers' children as well as the employed, blacks as well as whites. So we lay down in the road." Norman Yarborough, head of Eastover Mining Company, is not coming either. There were ten lodges that were chartered for the National Miners Union. An open shop is where union membership is allowed but not mandated to work at that location. The AFSC fed almost 1500 children in Harlan by the end of the 1931-2 schoolyear, as well as about a hundred nursing and expectant mothers. Why couldn't Eastover live with the same national UMW contract that so many other companies have accepted? knee-deep in water, he has experienced many electrical shocks. He decided to make Harlan County a test case in the UMW's new, more aggressive organizing efforts.