He'd worked seventy-eight hours straight the preceding week. 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. I've talked to Norman Yarborough, and you ain't bringing no union down here. On the way back to the Mount Aire at the end of the day, we pass back through Brookside with its deteriorating mining-camp houses along the stinking Clear Fork River. Willard Wirtz asks how it will all come out, how the strike will end. She talks about the women being armed with sticks, mace . 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. The Harlan County coal miners campaigned and fought to organize their workplaces and better their wages and working conditions. "I've got so many duns from the hospital that I just quit lookin' at them. Enforcing the operators' political will, both within and outside the law, was the Harlan County Coal Operators Association. Now, along a cloudy green stream, or through deep cuts in the mountains, or high atop a timbered ridge, looking down on green quilt-patch valleys, we wind our way toward Harlan. Talking to Aaronson, I am reminded of an old tin sign I saw tacked on a tree along the highway as I left Harlan. Prior to Miller's election, the union had become corrupt, dictatorial, and a frequent collaborator with the mine owners. 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. Harlan Daily Enterprise, September 17, 1943. : The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! Why is garbage left on the roadway? There is a suit still in litigation. As the motorcade approached a single shot rang out in the air. To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators Association decided to cut all wages by ten percent. 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. In the face of what promised to be a lengthy struggle for the Harlan County coal miners of 1931, their wildcat strike had left thousands jobless and many homeless as well. Carl Horn of Duke Power and Arnold Miller of the UMW had talked, and negotiations had been resumed. He said that when the coal industry was at its height in 1928, the peak of . The union abandoned its efforts after less than a year. The Harlan County Coal War is one of the . These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. 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. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. After breakfast, we travel fifteen miles east to Evarts. In Harlan County, Kentucky, the 1931 Battle of Evarts ended in four deaths. Mr. Blanton explained the reasoning behind coal camps. 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.". Nevertheless, as the county seat, the city of Harlan has resources much of the county lacks. During the rest of the afternoon, the miners talk about what has happened on the picket line and in the local court. Pic from Harlan County USA of a Coal Camp. 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. 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. Only three of the families in the camp have indoor toilets. Depression-era Harlan County, Kentucky, was the site of one of the most bitter and protracted labor disputes in American history. At Washington's National Airport, I board Piedmont Airline's fat little silver jet on a Sunday afternoon in early March. Some of the women say they haven't had a drink of water since moving to the Brookside camp. 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. There were shots exchanged and all three deputies and one striker were killed. I was born in Florida and grew up in Burdine, Kentucky. 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 . 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. 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. In Harlan County, Kentucky, are some of our country's richest natural resourcesand some of its poorest people. The Harlan County Wars took on its own epic spin on the ongoing fight between labor disputes and the coal operators and owners lasting almost ten years. He is dressed more like a miner than a mining executive. 5355 after Local Union 4495 at Black Mountain folded up. Blaine Sergent, coal leader, putting up his check at the end of a workday in Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1946. 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. Grace Elizabeth Hale. Why haven't the car bodies been removed from the highway and the streets? (There is such a provision in the standard UMW contract.). The sign man for R C Cola has worked this territory well. It is clear that these women have been a main factor in keeping the mine shut down. Even pop culture cannot ignore its impact with such shows as Justified. Blair. Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. HARLAN COUNTYHarlan County, Kentucky, is a rural county located in a major coal-mining region in the Appalachian Mountains. Is the safety provision in the UMW contract the sticking point for Eastover? When they went to jail, they say, some of the women took their children with them. 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. 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. The miners could be fired if they refused to spend their paychecks only in the store. 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. 8 N.L.R.B. These battles will end the Coal Wars proper. The Price of Coal, Part II. I have an Associates Degree from Hazard Community College and Technical School. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These women have organized a special kind of feminist movement, and the issues to them are life-and-death issues. Many of the houses have no running water, and these families have to carry all their water from a common outdoor spigot. "This troubles me; I don't sleep," Yarborough says. The median family income is $4600 a year. Lois Scott, a woman of about forty-five, begins to speak first. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. 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. When the smoke had cleared, the bodies of three guards and one miner were found, and an undetermined number of other dead and dying had been carried away into the mountains. There had been several clashes with the "scabs," the mine guards, and the state police, Kahn says. Does the Association hire for all the mines in the county? They fed strikers' children as well as the employed, blacks as well as whites. In one of these, the septic tank has been out of order for several months. As discussed in a previous video. While it succeeded in organizing thousands of miners, it failed to complete a bargaining agreement with Harlan County's coal operators. There was an addition to where miners could choose their own representation for these negotiations. Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. Done Citation. "We run because we wanted to testify, and if we hadn't run, he woulda had us in jail." It is not all Duke's fault by any means. 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. In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. She doesn't know where she will go when the camp is closed. Leroy Helton says miners often have to splice electrical cable, even though they're not qualified to do so. Free shipping for many products! And always there is a murky roadside stream, beech and sycamore trees lining its banks. To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association decided to cut all wages by ten . And, all around, there are the rolling mountains, covered with second-growth timber. Here, too, are some of the richest natural resources in the countryand some of the poorest people. Five miles north of Harlan, we drive up Inspiration Mountain. Interview Summary. KCA traces its origin to a statewide association of coal operators who united their efforts in 1942. 25 (N.L.R.B. How does the Harlan County Coal Operators Association fit into the picture? And I can't get you off of that couch. The company also agreed to abide by any agreement reached between the . My man was mashed up in the mines. The transcript will be published as a book. Under this Act, the right to organize in ones workplace was granted as well as it outlawed any discrimination whether employed or seeking employment based on union membership. Now and then, there is a neat, new frame house or a Pic and Pay market between scattered tarpaper shacks. Harlan County, Kentucky is known for two things: bituminous coal and Bloody Harlan. One of the Deputies was Jim Daniels. The coal miners, lean and tough from Kentucky mountain life, knew how to fight back. by Ron Soodalter. The National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP) was of the American Communist Party. The warrant was never served. This was thirteen percent of the workers showing up for their scheduled work times. Breaks in the cable, they say, are often just wrapped with mask-ing tape and exposed again to the water. 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. 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." Sudie Crusenberg, a plain woman in a cotton dress, gives us some idea of what life is like for a coal-mining family. Soon after the "Battle of Evarts," novelist Theodore Dreiser led a citizens' group to Harlan County to find and publicize the bloody facts. The latest unrest in Harlan County came when in July of 2019, Black jewel LLC filed for bankruptcy and liquidation. He says that he will not agree to the Brookside contract applying to "all" of Eastover's operations. On May 24, 1931, Sheriff Blair rescinded the miners right to assemble and tear-gassed a union rally. B.W. . It is a warm night and at every bend in the asphalt road we hear a chorus of croaking frogs. Yarborough replies. In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. Duke went into the coal business directly in 1970 when it organized Eastover Mining Company as a wholly owned subsidiary and, through it, bought several mines in eastern Kentucky, including the one at Brookside. The UMW union called in the National Guard to help them. I remind her that Duke and Eastover executives were invited, and have refused to appear before us. At these locations, the mine wages began to be comparable to other jobs around the nation. 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. This was not just a flashy slogan, and the truth of it is . Each of us makes a statement. These interviews with major coal operators document their personal histories and the history of the coal industry in eastern Kentucky during the twentieth century. I've read that in its heyday, the Blackjoe coal camp consisted of 60 or so houses. Project Summary. We gather back in Evarts and announce that our report will be ready in two or three weeks. At first, there were little battles with gunshots being exchanged between the strikers and the private guards, and the local law enforcement agents. But will Norman Yarborough ever agree to recognize the UMW? The final straw was when the Harlan County Coal Operators Association cut miners' wages by 10%. Only 23 percent of those in the county over the age of twenty-five have completed high school. Three of our Inquiry members plan to talk with the president of Duke Power Company. HARLAN COUNTY COAL OPERATORS ASSOCIATION. Only to be escorted to the county line and told not to return. They had no safety committee, the miners say, and the federal reports bear them out. McQueen says that in late 1972 he burned his fingers to the bone on a switchbox where a blown fuse had been hot-wired. The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! 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.". (Eastover offered fifty cents a ton.) 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. Pay ranged from $17 to $32 day, the average being $25. Violence erupted that would periodically repeat itself for the next eight years. He says that they do not need the UMW to look after them; he will do that. Chicago citation style: Harris & Ewing, photographer. 3.' Among coal miners, Harlan County, Kentucky, is known as "Bloody Harlan." Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Which Side are You on? We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. Duke Power Company of North Carolina, he says, is the sixth largest utility company in the world. There were ten lodges that were chartered for the National Miners Union. 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. If any attractive woman became interested in me, I'd think it was a very lovely thing. The slab of slate, more than 51 feet long, and 17 feet wide and weighing tons, was dodged by two men. Duke Power Company appears to be the key to breaking the deadlock in negotiations. James Sizemore says that frequently float dust, which is dangerously explosive, would get too heavy in the mine, and he would complain, but that. No wonder R C Cola has so many signs everywhere. Yellow-dog contracts (Contracts where the employees agreed to never organize into a union before they were employed with a coal company), company unions, blacklists, all tactics that were employed by the companies to bust up unions, and discrimination-based on union activity were all outlawed under this act. 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 Neither will Dr. Robert Coles, psychiatrist and author of Children of Crisis. But you must remember I am an immoral man. Si says Harlan is a dry countyno legal liquor and no beer. And lastly, the Harlan Fox Mining Co - presumably derived from the Harlan Fox Coal Co - was in operation from 1925-1932. 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. You come out of there lookin' like a hog that's been rootin' in the mud.' Eastover agreed to sign the 1971 wage pact of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association which is in force at 1,200 mines. 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 also women's day before the Citizens In-quiry. Exist Dates. Toilets are built out over the river, and the water has obviously been much higher in the recent past. There's water in the mine because the pumps often won't work. I currently live in Tennessee but my hope is to one day come back home to live in the beautiful mountains once more. 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." As correspondent Bob Simon reports, 47 miners died, six of them from just one county in eastern Kentucky . The miners charge that Eastover has hired what they call "gun thugs." Others claim that his death was caused by an election concerning slot machines into the county. Mine operators viciously opposed miners' efforts to unionize, particularly in Harlan County. But I ain't leaving because this is my home.". We look back on the film, which screens this Sunday, February . The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. Throughout 1931, violence sprouted between miners By 1908 the union had . Copy as parenthetical citation. Our drive takes us upstream along the yellow-brown Clear Fork River. 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). Is that the only objection that is holding up a settlement? Partial Transcript: August 27, '86. Mine operators formed the 1 Harlan County Coal Operators Association and through this organization made collective decisions concerning the mines. Yarborough is tough and unyielding. Sheriff Blair was voted out of his office in 1933 and died just a year later. The judge's fines and sentences were appealed. Most of the land is owned by the mining companies. It took forty-five minutes for someone to come and help get him out, Deaton says.