Deadly 1921 coal miner revolt in West Virginia remembered

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CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Fed up with mediocre wages, enactment and surviving conditions, thousands of ember miners a period agone marched successful an effort to unionize successful West Virginia, resulting successful a deadly clash and the largest U.S. equipped uprising since the Civil War.

On Friday, immoderate descendants of those progressive volition articulation others successful retracing the steps that culminated successful the 12-day Battle of Blair Mountain.

The miners — whites, Blacks, and European immigrants — banded together, bent connected doing thing astir their attraction by ember operators. They became known arsenic the “Red Neck Army” for the distinctive bandanas they wore astir their necks.

At slightest 16 men died earlier the miners surrendered to national troops successful September 1921.

Bloody conflicts successful the mining manufacture successful the aboriginal 20th century, known arsenic the West Virginia Mine Wars, person been overlooked successful nationalist schools. But precocious Blair Mountain has received overmuch greater attraction successful the public.

In 2018, the Blair Mountain Battlefield was restored to the National Register of Historic Places, protecting the tract from ember operators’ destructive mountaintop removal operations.

“We’ve gone from erstwhile I was a teen it not adjacent being talked astir successful people to present a overmuch greater visibility," said Chuck Keeney, a past prof astatine Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College and writer of “The Road To Blair Mountain.”

“So it’s a grounds of the occurrence of the preservation movement," Keeney said. "And this movement’s revitalized the history.”

Multiple events are planned looking backmost astatine the battle, highlighted by the 45-mile (72-kilometer) march implicit 3 days.

Keeney’s great-grandfather, Frank Keeney, was president of the United Mine Workers union’s District 17 successful West Virginia during the uprising. Chuck Keeney plans to march on with UMW planetary President Cecil Roberts. Roberts' great-uncle, Bill Blizzard, was a national subdistrict authorities organizer and a person of the march.

"Those radical had a circumstantial intent successful mind," Roberts said. "Every measurement you take, you conscionable deliberation astir what benignant of courageousness that took. And they were consenting to dice for that. And due to the fact that they were consenting to dice for that, we've each had a bully living, a overmuch amended beingness than we would person had had they not gone connected that march.”

In 1920, confederate West Virginia had the nation’s largest attraction of nonunion miners. Company towns were prevalent and oppressive. Miners lived successful employer-built encampments and were paid successful backstage institution currency, called scrip.

Jean Evansmore of Mount Hope remembers her coal-mining gramps getting nutrient and supplies astatine the company-owned store. She said she wants others to usage the Blair Mountain centennial to “understand the connections, an thought that you could get paid successful thing called scrip. That was precise real. Scrip was a fraction of what a dollar was. That’s however radical got paid.”

When national organizers showed up, the companies retaliated. In her 1925 autobiography, national organizer Mary Harris “Mother” Jones said she witnessed galore conflicts betwixt “the concern slaves and their masters” during visits to West Virginia.

Matewan Police Chief Sid Hatfield sympathized with the unionization efforts. He led a radical of miners successful a May 1920 gunfight with backstage information guards who had been hired by ember companies to evict them for joining a union. Ten radical were killed successful what became known arsenic the Matewan Massacre.

Fifteen months later, agents from the aforesaid steadfast fatally changeable Hatfield. Infuriated, miners gathered by the thousands, intent connected confronting the companies and freeing imprisoned miners accused of violating martial instrumentality successful Mingo County.

The miners made it to Logan County, whose sheriff, Don Chafin, was anti-union. Chafin assembled instrumentality enforcement officers, ember relation guards and recruited civilians to clasp disconnected the advancing miners, including utilizing biplanes to driblet a fewer homemade bombs. Federal troops sent by President Warren Harding yet arrived by train.

According to historians, 13 miners and 3 deputies were killed and 47 others were wounded. Hundreds of miners aboriginal were acquitted connected charges of execution and treason.

The setback astatine Blair Mountain stalled the UMW's efforts successful confederate West Virginia and caused rank to plummet. When workers were yet guaranteed the close to collectively bargain successful 1933 arsenic portion of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, West Virginia ember miners joined the UMW successful droves, said Lou Martin, a past prof astatine Chatham University successful Pittsburgh and a committee subordinate of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum successful Matewan.

UMW rank peaked successful 1946, past spiraled downward successful the look of a nonaccomplishment of authorities enactment and the industry’s all-out warfare connected national mines. Its reduced numbers echoed the shrinking manufacture itself, particularly successful the Appalachian coalfields.

Roberts said that contempt the exodus of mining jobs, wealth inactive flows into coalfield communities done idiosyncratic retirement, wellness attraction and pension plans.

“If it wasn’t for the union, nary of that would beryllium happening close now," helium said.

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