It was a nearly decade-long conflict, lasting from 1931 to 1939. . Miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, have drawn national attention with their direct action occupying a railroad track to halt a coal train . 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. He speaks of "my people" and "my men." Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. We soon get into a discussion about Dreiser's 1931 inquiry. She speaks in a soft, pleasant voice. In the year of "the energy crisis," Coal is King again at $30 a ton. A young woman from the Associated Press asks me, aren't we getting only one side of the story? knee-deep in water, he has experienced many electrical shocks. 2011: $1,161,330. He can't never walk again." A Brief History of Harlan County, USA. They want the terms of the standard UMW contract or better. And I can't get you off of that couch. Why haven't the car bodies been removed from the highway and the streets? A shoulder blade and five of his ribs were broken. While their main objectives were a steady job, a decent wage and a program of safety checks . The miners say that all of the strikers have been blacklisted by the Association. They also plan to join with a North Carolina group in protesting Duke's requested rate increase, and they are going to attend the meeting of Duke's stockholders on May 30. One of the Deputies was Jim Daniels. On May 24, 1931, Sheriff Blair rescinded the miners right to assemble and tear-gassed a union rally. 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. Apparently, this is one of Eastover's major objections. He run all the way down the stairs and out of the jail." The slab of slate, more than 51 feet long, and 17 feet wide and weighing tons, was dodged by two men. J. D. Skidmore says that, back in the mines, the phones are always out of order, there is no transportation out until the end of the shift, and it's a one-hour walk to daylight. I'm standing at 2800 feet above sea level. We're all involved. Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. The members of the Inquiry panel leave the Community Center to visit the coal camp at Brookside-rows of delapidated frame houses, identical except for their weathering gray, green, red, and beige paint. This active organization is made up of those who represent the leader in the mining industry. Copy with citation. On February 16, 1931, in order to prevent operating at a loss, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. Si says Harlan is a dry countyno legal liquor and no beer. That commitment has never waivered, and has grown . or smaller. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Which Side are You on? 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. Nannie Rainey says, "I told him if he got my children, he was gonna haveta take me too." Is that the only objection that is holding up a settlement? ", What about federal inspection? (Fifty million tons of union coal are mined in western Kentucky; only 6.5 million tons of union coal are mined in eastern Kentucky.) But relatives did come and take the children. 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 . 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.". This was thirteen percent of the workers showing up for their scheduled work times. Pierce has brought the actual Courier-Journal clippings about the Dreiser inquiry and shares them with us. Burger Chef. Only 23 percent of those in the county over the age of twenty-five have completed high school. The unrest continues in Harlan and surrounding counties as there have been many strikes. Crossing the Clinch River, we turn onto Highway 421 and leave the modern world. 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. The miners charge that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is behind Eastover's refusal to sign a contract. "But if they call me and ask if a man works for me, I simply say yes or no.". When McQueen was hurt, his foreman drove him to the hospital and left him there, and he was two hours hitchhiking home. 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. Rev. October 31, 2016. 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. And always there is a murky roadside stream, beech and sycamore trees lining its banks. The union abandoned its efforts after less than a year. 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. Overturned car bodies everywhere. 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. 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. "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. There was no functioning safety committee Medical and retirement benefits were minimal and unreliable. (This . Duke Power Company appears to be the key to breaking the deadlock in negotiations. Chicago citation style: Harris & Ewing, photographer. Yarborough's affidavit stated that "the group swarmed out into the roads, stopped cars, and forced company employees into coercive conversations and indulged in generally raucous name-calling and abuse." The company also agreed to abide by any agreement reached between the . The coal miners, lean and tough from Kentucky mountain life, knew how to fight back. USBM Final Investigation Report (1.7 Mb) Successful Rescue . That's an old term in Harlan County, used to describe special, plain-clothed guards. 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. My brother died at the age of forty. 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." The distance a miner had to walk and how time was looked at was in 15-minute increments. I've read that in its heyday, the Blackjoe coal camp consisted of 60 or so houses. 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. There are still ongoing strikes today and the violence in Harlan County Continues. I currently live in Tennessee but my hope is to one day come back home to live in the beautiful mountains once more. Miners laid in an ambush on the day of May 5, 1931, near the Evarts railroad crossing. If those under them behave in an approved manner then they receive housing, work, food, and other perks of their position. Mine operators viciously opposed miners' efforts to unionize, particularly in Harlan County. There are very few vacant houses in Harlan County and virtually no available land to build on. "Roof falls are a constant hazard, but the bosses just keep on rushin'.". In Harlan County, Kentucky, the 1931 Battle of Evarts ended in four deaths. So we lay down in the road." Fifty miners and their wives have at one time or another been held in contempt of this order. 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. 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. Did she find the stick on the ground? You come out of there lookin' like a hog that's been rootin' in the mud.' 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. What did the foremen say on those occasions? Harlan County sits in the sweet spot of coal mining in southeastern Kentucky. Soon enough, most miners had gone on strike out of solidarity. In "Bloody Harlan" in the 1930s, miners and union organizers faced bayonets and many died fighting the coal bosses, helping to fuel a national wave of organizing. "Yarborough says he just don't want nobody tellin' him how to run his mine," Deaton says. I've talked to Norman Yarborough, and you ain't bringing no union down here. It does not store any personal data. He is a sturdily built, self-assured man of about fifty, with a strong, square jaw and a rough, weathered face. 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. 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." All during the day they worked in shifts, trying to penetrate to the point where the explosion occurred. As part of his New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented and had passed the National Industrial Act. Toilet paper clings to the bushes and tree limbs five or six feet up from the rushing stream. The Act also made a provision for a National Labor-Relations Board to designate a legal structure for the workers to conduct fair and legal elections of their officers and representatives. The UMW union called in the National Guard to help them. Sudie Crusenberg, a plain woman in a cotton dress, gives us some idea of what life is like for a coal-mining family. No concessions or deals were made between the two factions and the membership of the United Mine Workers union plummeted. 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. 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. Altogether, it is a heavy financial burden for the UMW. When they went to jail, they say, some of the women took their children with them. The sign man for R C Cola has worked this territory well. To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators Association decided to cut all wages by ten percent. 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. 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. If you wouldn't do it, they'd just say, 'Get your bucket.' It was two o'clock on a Monday morning when the accident occurred, and he'd been in the mine., more than twelve hours. The SLU was largely seen as serving the interests of the mine owners rather than the workers. Capitalizing on the general . 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. She doesn't know where she will go when the camp is closed. It doesn't seem like enough. Sheriff T. R. Middleton replaced Blair under the pro-union campaign platform. Paternalism is the practice of people who have a business or other authority to restrict the freedoms of those who are subordinate to them. Free shipping for many products! Their General Secretary recently released some facts which help to illustrate the reason for much of the unemployment in the county. "I cain't get a job nowhere in this county. Eight miners were sentenced to life in prison for the actions that were taken on May 5, 1931. 1931, only $13.5 million. More than twenty-four babies out of a thousand die before they are one year old, and the expenditure per child in the public schools is one-half the national average. Captain James Cromer of the state police later tells news reporters, "The women are a problem. Another press member criticizes Barbara Bode for having raised a clenched fist during the women's testimony. We are told that Eastover has announced its intention to tear down the mining-camp houses and move the striking miners out. One of the better houses is already being demolished. Kentucky communities discussed include Artemus, Burdine, Jenkins, Jellico, Van Lear, and Wheelwright; and Kentucky counties include Bell, Clay, Floyd, Harlan . Established in 1916, its membership consisted of nearly all the large mining companies, and it represented the major political force in the county. He tells me that the miners plan to picket on Wall Street, hoping to give Duke problems with its stock. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". "We could lay down, fight the police, or let them scabs go to work. It is a warm night and at every bend in the asphalt road we hear a chorus of croaking frogs. "They didn't say nothin'; all they want's coal.' Strikebreakers were often beaten. But negotiations for a contract with Eastover soon broke down, and on July 30 the miners at Brookside began the strike that now, as we arrive, is in its eighth month. I've got five living children and four dead. With the passage of these acts, there was unrest in Harlan County. In one of these, the septic tank has been out of order for several months. Afterwards, they gathered near the picket line at the Eastover property in Brookside. I glance at the new Piedmont magazine, Pace. 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. As in Germany, the AFSC used need alone to determine who got fed. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. 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 . Harlan Daily Enterprise, September 17, 1943. CBS is represented by a camera crew, and there are a number of national reporters. By 1908 the union had . 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. 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 the Harlan County Coal Operators Association (HCCOA) and secondly at the worn work boots of miners who, when work was plentiful, saw little or no need for a union. Others say they intend to speak and write about what they have heard. Dalton points out that there were 132 mine fatalities in the United States in 1973, only seventeen of them in UMW mines. The miners express extreme dissatisfaction with Eastover's medical and retirement benefits. Why wasn't the fuse replaced at once? On May 5, 1931, the Battle of Evarts began. To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association decided to cut all wages by ten . And you wondr why I keep running my mouth . "It's one of 'em," Yarborough says. 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're trapped. Even though things were doing better for the unions in Harlan County, there was still civil unrest. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. He said that when the coal industry was at its height in 1928, the peak of . But mostly the scenery is depressingly bleak. Former Director of Harlan County Coal Operators Association. The radical ideology of the union began gaining some ground in the mountains. 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. It is unclear who fired that shot but both sides claim that the other side did it. It is thought that Middleton was assassinated for backing troops who were present in the County to protect the miners. 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 At Brookside, this would amount to $400,000 a year. What will happen now that the first full year after the union election is ending? Yarborough comes out of a staff meeting and ushers us hack to a large, paneled meeting room with folding tables and chairs. Throughout 1931, violence sprouted between miners No wonder R C Cola has so many signs everywhere. Expand. Only to be escorted to the county line and told not to return. Theoretically, even operators' and owners' children were . The most shocking moment in Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) looks at first like an abstract painting. The miners could be fired if they refused to spend their paychecks only in the store. A rural county of 27,000, Harlan County's average household income is about $29,000. Get a Demo. Among coal miners, Harlan County, Kentucky, is known as "Bloody Harlan." 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. Louis Stacy that he has several times been running a defective roofbolting machine when word came that inspector was on his way. We are picked up at the airport by Si (for Simon) Kahn, a Pennsylvania rabbi's son who graduated from Harvard, came to the Southern mountains as a Vista worker, and remained here, working for local community groups. . J. D. Skidmore says, "I have no chance of getting a job in Harlan County if this strike is not settled."