This week, in the 1920s, Oscar Micheaux was an entrepreneur filmmaker in western Virginia. He became a world-renowned director and producer. Also, Kentucky’s poet laureate lives down the road from what has been called the country’s most lethal cryptid. Attempts to spot it have led to deaths. And, we talk soul food with Xavier Oglesby, who’s passing on generations of kitchen wisdom to his niece.
Some of the thousands of armed West Virginia coal miners who marched from Marmet to Blair Mountain from Aug. 25 to Sept. 2, 1921. West Virginia Archive
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One hundred years ago, West Virginia was home to our nation’s most violent labor uprising.
For some, the Battle of Blair Mountain was a watershed moment when coal workers decided their rights were worth fighting and even dying for. The armed insurrection pitted 10,000 coal miners against 3,000 heavily armed coal industry guards and state troopers. The conflict came to a head because of the social and economic forces that hit West Virginia’s coal country after World War I. It was the largest labor uprising in American history and the largest armed conflict since the Civil War. And yet, the Battle of Blair Mountain is largely unknown to most Americans, including West Virginians.
To learn more, Us & Them host Trey Kay follows the path of the miners on their march to Mingo, and learns what precipitated the battle.
This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the West Virginia Humanities Council and the CRC Foundation.
Subscribe to Us & Them on Apple Podcasts, NPR One, RadioPublic, Spotify, Stitcher and beyond. You also can listen to Us & Them on WVPB Radio — tune in on the fourth Thursday of every month at 8 p.m., with an encore presentation on the following Saturday at 3 p.m.
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Historian Charles Keeney (author of The Road to Blair Mountain: Saving a Mine Wars Battlefield from King Coal) takes Us & Them host Trey Kay to retrace the “March from Marmet to Mingo.”
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The boarded up Whipple Company Store in Whipple, W.Va. was built around 1900. As a company store, it remained in operation until August 1957, when the New River Company mine closed.
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Singer/songwriter Mary Hott explores the old Whipple Company Store — one of the last remaining coal company stores in Fayette County, WV. The songs on Hott’s album “Devil In The Hills” focuses on the culture of the company store and its effect on women.
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United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts speaking at a rally in New York City in July 2021. UMWA miners protested outside of the Manhattan headquarters of BlackRock, which is listed as the largest shareholder of Warrior Met Coal. For months, the UMWA has protested Warrior Met for better wages and employee benefits.
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UMWA protest in midtown New York City in July 2021.
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Actor Susan Sarandon speaking at a UMWA Rally in Midtown Manhattan.
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Actor Susan Sarandon speaks with Us & Them host Trey Kay at a UMWA Rally in NYC in July 2021
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This week, in the 1920s, Oscar Micheaux was an entrepreneur filmmaker in western Virginia. He became a world-renowned director and producer. Also, Kentucky’s poet laureate lives down the road from what has been called the country’s most lethal cryptid. Attempts to spot it have led to deaths. And, we talk soul food with Xavier Oglesby, who’s passing on generations of kitchen wisdom to his niece.
We listen to an excerpt from the latest Inside Appalachia and learn about the influence and contributions of Oscar Micheaux, an African American filmmaker who lived in Virginia in the 1920s and shattered stereotypes.
America’s drug crisis is evolving — and so is the fight over how to define recovery. As medication-assisted treatment gains ground, some question whether it’s sobriety at all. In this encore episode, Trey Kay steps inside a West Virginia recovery mission where faith, medicine and survival intersect.
A West Virginia cabinetmaker describes his journey to becoming an accomplished poet. Also, state lawmakers have taken an important step to funding the state’s EMS. And, the Trump administration announced it would roll back a rule on power plant emissions of mercury.
