It is beautiful in Harlan County, as pretty as any place in the world. There are nearly 40,000 people in the county, a drop of 36 percent since 1960. 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. 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. The committee has invited owners as well as workers to participate in the hearings, but the impression we get is that management will not appear. How does the Harlan County Coal Operators Association fit into the picture? 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. Seen 'em carried out on a stretcher," she says. Harlan County U.S.A. by Felicia Elliott, August 2, 2016. "Yeah," a coal miner says, "but the land's so poor, you can't hardly raise an umbrella on it.". Toilet paper clings to the bushes and tree limbs five or six feet up from the rushing stream. Her daughter, Bessie Cornett, an attractive young brunette, says, "I'm not in jail today because you people are here." Funeral Wednesday March 1 at 11 a.m. at Grays Knob Bible Church. The officials were listed were the "veteran safety director of the Harlan Coal Operators Association, and Rufus Bailey and H. Hamlin, state . Interment at Resthaven Cemetery, Keith, Ky. Visitation 6-9 p.m. at the Grays Knob Bible Church. These battles will end the Coal Wars proper. They are merely a service organization, Yarborough says. "I don't know nothing about the electrical part." Former Director of Harlan County Coal Operators Association. The coal miners, lean and tough from Kentucky mountain life, knew how to fight back. When they went to jail, they say, some of the women took their children with them. 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. "The personal is political" was a rallying cry of second wave feminism. I remind her that Duke and Eastover executives were invited, and have refused to appear before us. 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. The National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP) was of the American Communist Party. The warrant was never served. 5355, atEvarts . California labor activist Caroline Decker also raised money for the relief of the striking miner efforts. He tells me that the miners plan to picket on Wall Street, hoping to give Duke problems with its stock. National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions Jul 5, 1938. 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. The Kentucky Coal Association is an IRS designated 501 (c) (6) nonprofit organization that aims to educate its members and the public of coal production and safety in the state of Kentucky. Name Entry; Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. Norman Yarborough, head of Eastover Mining Company, is not coming either. 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. 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. Mine operators formed the 1 Harlan County Coal Operators Association and through this organization made collective decisions concerning the mines. The United Mine Workers union also cited that they did not have the resources to help in the battle. Five men and their titles are listed and all are doing all they can.. Big Boy. Overturned car bodies everywhere. Find the perfect harlan county coal stock photo, image, vector, illustration or 360 image. October 31, 2016. The judge's fines and sentences were appealed. 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. 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. Several folk singers and other artists toured the United States to raise money during the strikes. Don Dalton, UMW Safety Director for Region Six, explains this. If those under them behave in an approved manner then they receive housing, work, food, and other perks of their position. Miners laid in an ambush on the day of May 5, 1931, near the Evarts railroad crossing. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. Miners also wanted the right to organize and have a union. At first, heading northwest on modern Route 23, through Kingsport, Tennessee, Weber City, Virginia, and Gate City, Virginia, the sights are the same as almost everywhere else in America today. "Yarborough says he just don't want nobody tellin' him how to run his mine," Deaton says. In Harlan County, Kentucky, the 1931 Battle of Evarts ended in four deaths. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. 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. In the bloody 1930s coal wars, miners known to be union members were fired and evicted from company-owned homes. He can't never walk again." A rural county of 27,000, Harlan County's average household income is about $29,000. However, the battle continues to this day. Here and there, we also see white-blossoming pear and dogwood trees. "Not at all," Yarborough says. When Barbara finishes her answer, Wirtz raises a clenched fist and says, "Right on!" The Red Cross eventually became involved in the county along with several local charities. "They didn't say nothin'; all they want's coal.' They fed strikers' children as well as the employed, blacks as well as whites. In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. 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 Brookside mine is capable of producing only about a half-million tons of the 15 million tons of coal Duke uses each year. 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. 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). I have taken several classes in Journalism as well as in the Appalachian History, Literature, and Sociology during my time at those schools. Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. It doesn't seem like enough. Three of the federal reports state that there was no safety committee at Brookside, as required by law. Done. Nevertheless, as the county seat, the city of Harlan has resources much of the county lacks. "Then he'd come out looking like a sheep-killing dog and get in his truck and run. 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. Jacqueline Brophy asks why public services have broken down. (There is such a provision in the standard UMW contract.). Four men were arrested in connection with this murder. 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. 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. 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. They say no action has been taken on this report. Another press member criticizes Barbara Bode for having raised a clenched fist during the women's testimony. Nannie Rainey says, "I told him if he got my children, he was gonna haveta take me too." Soon after the "Battle of Evarts," novelist Theodore Dreiser led a citizens' group to Harlan County to find and publicize the bloody facts. She doesn't know where she will go when the camp is closed. "I've seen some hurt and some killed. by Ron Soodalter. Someone had planted dynamite in his automobile and when he started it up the car blew up. 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. 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. It does not store any personal data. 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. ", 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. 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.". ~~ David Sergent. Grace Elizabeth Hale. Isolated trailer houses. I have also attended the University of Pikeville. Genders. Pay ranged from $17 to $32 day, the average being $25. Free shipping for many products! Harlan County Coal Miners Deaths 1940-1949 1940 1940 Hayes, Petry - Harlan Central Coal Company Totz No. Partial Transcript: August 27, '86. That means, among other things, an average daily wage of $45. Some of the women went to jail with the men, and some took their children with them. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. Pic from Harlan County USA of a Coal Camp. 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. "Dreiser, Woman Indicted," one headline reads. "We run because we wanted to testify, and if we hadn't run, he woulda had us in jail." This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. All during the day they worked in shifts, trying to penetrate to the point where the explosion occurred. Rev. There is no water in the house. Mrs. Herschel Gaw, wife of the ailing jailer, locked them all up. "They don't want miners havin' any say in safety." On the plane with me, it turns out, is another member of the Citizens Inquiry, Jacqueline Brophy, who is the director of the Labor-Liberal Arts Program of Cornell University's School of Industrial Labor Relations in New York. With this Supreme Court ruling, all but one of the open shops in Harlan County went back to the previous mine operations. Duke Power Company of North Carolina, he says, is the sixth largest utility company in the world. The miners say that all of the strikers have been blacklisted by the Association. They have done this only since the Brookside strike. Project Summary. Duke Power Company appears to be the key to breaking the deadlock in negotiations. 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." At Brookside, this would amount to $400,000 a year. 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. I'm standing at 2800 feet above sea level. Bobby's wife, Becky, who died in 2013, was a lifelong advocate for the people of 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. Harlan County in eastern Kentucky, which has been brought out into the spotlight this summer by the violence with which the local Coal Operators' Association has carried on this attack, is, as far as I can find out, a pretty good medium exhibit of the entire industry: living conditions are better than in Alabama and perhaps a little worse . The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relations Act or NLRA) guaranteed the rights of workers to choose to organize. They relate federal mine-safety figures which show that in 1971 the accident rate in the Brookside mine was three times the national average, and in 1972 was twice the national average. He speaks of "my people" and "my men." Mr. Blanton explained the reasoning behind coal camps. Betty Eldridge is a mildmannered, well-dressed woman of about forty. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. A month later, back in Washington, I meet with Bernie Aaronson at UMW headquarters. The airline magazine contains an article on southern skiing, a feature on hot, winter drinks for the "Piedmont palate," an article on how tough it is to be thirty-three and middle-class today, and a success story about an Atlanta bra, sleepwear, girdle, and pantie company. Miners die, and last year was the deadliest in American coal mines in more than a decade. After the railroad arrived in 1911 . It is not all Duke's fault by any means. 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.
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