The Three Point disaster was the worst suffered in the county since December 9, 1932, when 23 men were killed in an explosion in "Zero" Mine of Harlan Fuel Company, Yancey. At Brookside, this would amount to $400,000 a year. Toilets are built out over the river, and the water has obviously been much higher in the recent past. He does say, I think primarily for the record, that he would like to see negotiations begin again. Chicago citation style: Harris & Ewing, photographer. They had no safety committee, the miners say, and the federal reports bear them out. Mr. Nolan, a resident of Cawood, is survived by his wife, Mrs. Stella Nolan . All too many Americans are under the naive belief that, while unions may have been necessary in the 30's, they are no longer needed in the United States today. 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. Why haven't the car bodies been removed from the highway and the streets? Bill Doan says, "When I got hurt, I couldn't find Jim Miller, the man who had charge of the sick fund." They file with us copies of specific federal safety violation reports, and they say that nothing was ever done to correct these violations. Harlan County sits in the sweet spot of coal mining in southeastern Kentucky. the meeting room. She speaks in a soft, pleasant voice. 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. 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. 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". Coal companies refused to back down while the Red Cross refused to give aid . Sadly, the state and federal troops would occupy the county several times. Tuesday morning: Norman Yarborough has agreed to meet some of our group. Copy as parenthetical citation. The kind of house she would like, if she could find one, would rent for about $50 a month, but she and her husband cannot pay that much. Two hundred people crowd. He sentenced nine men and seven women to six months in jail and fined them $500 each. Some seventy-five state policemen were on hand as the crowd gathered. 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. 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. She says that the women decided that they couldn't fight guns with switches and that they had taken sticks with them the next time. HARLAN COUNTY COAL OPERATORS ASSOCIATION. Frame houses with rusty tin roofs. Here at Kentucky Tennessee Living we fully support the coal miners and their families. "They didn't say nothin'; all they want's coal.' Some of the women say they haven't had a drink of water since moving to the Brookside camp. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Which Side are You on? Freda Armes says, "I run him off. The radical ideology of the union began gaining some ground in the mountains. There had been several clashes with the "scabs," the mine guards, and the state police, Kahn says. "We've took about all we can take," he says. Harlan County. Harlan, district mine inspector of the State Department of Mines and Minerals, and James Bryson, safety director, Harlan County Coal Operators Association. Lois Scott says that the women organized the Brookside Women's Club and got involved in the strike "because we knew that if the women didn't come in there would be violence." New subdivisions named Tall Oaks and Colonial Heights. While it succeeded in organizing thousands of miners, it failed to complete a bargaining agreement with Harlan County's coal operators. The median family income is $4600 a year. Miner Curtis Cress, 34, says towns that . Harry Simms, who was a Young Communist League organizer was killed in Harlan. I can see twenty-five miles to the southeast, five ridges. When a miner complains, Jerry Johnson says, the foreman says, "If you don't like it, you can always get your bucket," meaning pick up your lunch bucket and get out. HARLAN COUNTYHarlan County, Kentucky, is a rural county located in a major coal-mining region in the Appalachian Mountains. Captain James Cromer of the state police later tells news reporters, "The women are a problem. The Price of Coal, Part II. 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. McDonald's. The unrest continues in Harlan and surrounding counties as there have been many strikes. He is dressed more like a miner than a mining executive. "The way I figured it, they done that because it was just a faster, way of getting coal." "Try walking out of there, carrying a man with a broken back," one of the miners says. On February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association reduced wages for miners in that part of eastern Kentucky by 10 percent. 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. There was an addition to where miners could choose their own representation for these negotiations. It was a nearly decade-long conflict, lasting from 1931 to 1939. . 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. And, even so, it usually takes forty-five minutes to an hour for the inspector to get from mine entrance to the face of the coal. He hopes the other side will do the same. Miners laid in an ambush on the day of May 5, 1931, near the Evarts railroad crossing. 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. The miners, impoverished due to their already low pay (this coming in the form of company scrip, room, and board), decided enough was enough, and some of them . The Kentucky mining camps still had the paternalism idea in their mists and the ever-independent Appalachian people were not having it. Crossing the Clinch River, we turn onto Highway 421 and leave the modern world. Three of the federal reports state that there was no safety committee at Brookside, as required by law. It is unclear who fired that shot but both sides claim that the other side did it. (The union has told us that they are quite willing to limit the contract to the Brookside mine.) knee-deep in water, he has experienced many electrical shocks. The decision caused unrest in the county among the miners. 2012: $1,552,717. "Then he'd come out looking like a sheep-killing dog and get in his truck and run. Segment Synopsis: Lois Scott continues her conversation from her previous interview. 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. 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. But relatives did come and take the children. Yarborough replies. ("Tony") Boyle for the national presidency of the UMW in 1972 in an election closely supervised by the federal government. 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. 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. Mostly, the miners were fighting for improved working conditions, higher wages, and better housing options for their families. James Sizemore says that frequently float dust, which is dangerously explosive, would get too heavy in the mine, and he would complain, but that. Garbage along the roadside. Is the safety provision in the UMW contract the sticking point for Eastover? If those under them behave in an approved manner then they receive housing, work, food, and other perks of their position. There is a hard edge in her voice, and her blue-gray eyes are flashing. Fifty miners and their wives have at one time or another been held in contempt of this order. (Fifty million tons of union coal are mined in western Kentucky; only 6.5 million tons of union coal are mined in eastern Kentucky.) 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. The union abandoned its efforts after less than a year. 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. In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. 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. As discussed in a previous video. Big Boy. 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. Office files covering topics such as "accounts receivable," "baseball club," "coal production," "garnishment orders," "Harlan Coal Operator's Association," "labor conditions," "medical conditions . I was born in Florida and grew up in Burdine, Kentucky. Don Dalton, UMW Safety Director for Region Six, explains this. 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. 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. "We run because we wanted to testify, and if we hadn't run, he woulda had us in jail." 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%. Now and then, there is a neat, new frame house or a Pic and Pay market between scattered tarpaper shacks. Capitalizing on the general . A month later, back in Washington, I meet with Bernie Aaronson at UMW headquarters. Is that the only objection that is holding up a settlement? Nonunion workers were attempting to leave the mine. Bright yellow forsythia has begun to bloom in the yards of Harlan and Brookside and Evarts. There were constant beatings of the miners by the Sheriffs deputies. If any attractive woman became interested in me, I'd think it was a very lovely thing. You come out of there lookin' like a hog that's been rootin' in the mud.' 1 negative : glass ; 4 x 5 in. 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. In 1981, he traded coal mining for gold mining as one of the founders of the current . I have been married to David W. Sergent since May 4, 2013. 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. 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. 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 . They made several attempts at holding strikes against the coal companies, but these failed in Harlan County. In Harlan County, Kentucky, the 1931 Battle of Evarts ended in four deaths. Ky., told the Senate Civil Liberties Committee as it resumed its investigation of alleged terrorism in connection with Harlan County Coal Operators' efforts to resist union organization drives. 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. Kentucky communities discussed include Artemus, Burdine, Jenkins, Jellico, Van Lear, and Wheelwright; and Kentucky counties include Bell, Clay, Floyd, Harlan . On September 9, 1935, for the first time since the beginning of the war, troops were dispatched to Harlan County on behalf of the miners by the Governor of the State of Kentucky. It is too early for dolor. "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." Another press member criticizes Barbara Bode for having raised a clenched fist during the women's testimony. 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. Our drive takes us upstream along the yellow-brown Clear Fork River. 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. "The personal is political" was a rallying cry of second wave feminism. 8 N.L.R.B. There was no standard contract for the miners. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Blair made it clear that he was on the side of the mine operators and the people of the county lost any illusion that the law enforcement would be impartial in this strike. These interviews with major coal operators document their personal histories and the history of the coal industry in eastern Kentucky during the twentieth century. 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. Neither will Dr. Robert Coles, psychiatrist and author of Children of Crisis. Harry Caudill, attorney and author of Night Comes to the Cumberlands, will not be able to join us in Harlan because of legal business. Available for both RF and RM licensing. We hope that our hearings will help hold down violence. "Not at all," Yarborough says. Other clippings detail the earlier bloodshed and misery in Harlan County. Special Judge F. Byrd Hogg, a neighboring county judge who has been assigned to the case, entered an early order limiting the strikers to three pickets at each of two entrances to the Eastover Mining Company property. The women are nervous about testifying, afraid of retaliation. They have probably helped keep their own men from exploding too. Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. He fined the UMW $20,000. Prior to Miller's election, the union had become corrupt, dictatorial, and a frequent collaborator with the mine owners. Altogether, it is a heavy financial burden for the UMW. . I have also attended the University of Pikeville. Wanted to be able to spend their money at a store of their choice besides the Black Mountain Coal Company store. Genders. The three houses with baths rent for $24 a month, plus $14 a month for electricity. 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. Source Citation [ }] Descriptive Note Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. The bosses wouldn't go in, but I've. We feel that we have provided a national forum for the miners to tell their story. Our delegation arrives on time at the Eastover office in Brookside. Thirty percent of the families lack automobiles. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. ", We break for lunch, prepared by the women of the Evarts Community Center. Nannie Rainey says, "I told him if he got my children, he was gonna haveta take me too." [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%. Mine operators formed the 1 Harlan County Coal Operators Association and through this organization made collective decisions concerning the mines. 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. . So we lay down in the road." The Red Cross eventually became involved in the county along with several local charities. There were only nine hundred miners working and 5,800 miners were idle and striking during the first strike. Since the county began mining, over one billion tons of coal have Up at seven on a Monday morning, I walk out onto the balcony of my motel room. We look back on the film, which screens this Sunday, February . Others say they intend to speak and write about what they have heard. It is an area of Kentucky that you only go to if you are intentionally going to the county. Done Citation. It does not store any personal data. We first hear from a number of the striking miners about safety conditions in the Brookside mine. He speaks of "my people" and "my men." I've read that in its heyday, the Blackjoe coal camp consisted of 60 or so houses. Get a Demo. From July 30, 2019, through September 28, 2019, coal miners and their families have blocked roads and railways demanding their payment. By 1908 the union had . I have attended the University of Kentucky. On Friday, October 3, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt called a precedent-shattering meeting at the temporary White House at 22 Lafayette Place, Washington, D.C. A . Mine operators viciously opposed miners' efforts to unionize, particularly in Harlan County. (Eastover offered fifty cents a ton.) Along the way, we pass through the community of Brookside, its mine-camp houses dominated by the brooding tin presence of the Eastover mine building on the hill. The Sheriff reportedly got rich on payoffs from the companies, and he used 181 mine company gunmen as special deputies. Miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, have drawn national attention with their direct action occupying a railroad track to halt a coal train . ", 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. 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. Biographical History . Most of the land is owned by the mining companies. It is a warm night and at every bend in the asphalt road we hear a chorus of croaking frogs. The Harlan County Coal Wars lasted from 1931-1939. 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 . It was [and still is] used to signify that what happened in the realm of politics, a field largely controlled by men, affect women's everyday lives. Sheriff Blair was voted out of his office in 1933 and died just a year later. We never would find out what happened. As in Germany, the AFSC used need alone to determine who got fed. The strikebreakers were under the protection of private mine guards. Si has signed on as head of the staff for the Citizens Inquiry, which is funded with a five-thousanddollar grant from the Field Foundation. These guards were legally able to protect these men during their off duty time. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. The SLU was largely seen as serving the interests of the mine owners rather than the workers. "Yeah," a coal miner says, "but the land's so poor, you can't hardly raise an umbrella on it.". The company will probably demand a new election. ~~ David Sergent. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. No wonder R C Cola has so many signs everywhere. Our driver points out Norman Yarborough's two-story frame house, across the highway from the camp and up out of the river bottom. However, after the dust was clear, the anti-labor coal country would end up being represented by unions. Seen 'em carried out on a stretcher," she says. Yarborough comes out of a staff meeting and ushers us hack to a large, paneled meeting room with folding tables and chairs. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators . And we're burning up people to make electricity. The magazine presents a different picture of the people and conditions in the Piedmont region than the one I am to see in Harlan County, Kentucky. 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. Midway in the trial, Judge Hogg dismissed the jury and directed a verdict of guilty. And lastly, the Harlan Fox Mining Co - presumably derived from the Harlan Fox Coal Co - was in operation from 1925-1932. Expand. 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. On September 4, 1935, Harlan County Attorney Elmon Clay Middleton, age 31, was assassinated by a car bomb containing eighteen sticks of dynamite. Only three of the families in the camp have indoor toilets. The warrant was never served. They were convicted on charges of conspiracy to murder. The miners express extreme dissatisfaction with Eastover's medical and retirement benefits. 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. A Brief History of Harlan County, USA. 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. Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. . A young woman from the Associated Press asks me, aren't we getting only one side of the story? The county became nationally famous in 1931 and 1932 when it was the site of one of the earliest and bloodiest labor battles of the decade. California labor activist Caroline Decker also raised money for the relief of the striking miner efforts. Daniels was one of the most hated deputies in the county due to his anti-union views. 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. 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. The coal miners, lean and tough from Kentucky mountain life, knew how to fight back. On May 24, 1931, Sheriff Blair rescinded the miners right to assemble and tear-gassed a union rally. Whitfield recalls working in his father's coal mines during the first years of commercial mining in Harlan County, and he describes the conditions. Yarborough says that he will not agree to the contract applying to Eastover's subcontractors. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. "Boss walks up and says, 'We've got to make this mine look good now, boys; the inspector's comin','" Jerry Johnson says. 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. The latest unrest in Harlan County came when in July of 2019, Black jewel LLC filed for bankruptcy and liquidation. The United Mine Workers union also cited that they did not have the resources to help in the battle. The National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP) was of the American Communist Party.
