Battle of Blair Mountain Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

‘Blair Footsteps’ Find Permanent Place At New Mine Wars Monuments

This weekend, organizers with the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum located in Matewan will uncover monuments meant to provide permanent markers about the Battle of Blair Mountain and other related events.

The work is driven by the momentum of last year’s celebrations that marked the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain. There were walking tours, new museum exhibits, concerts, picnics and labor symposiums.

One program called Blair Footsteps offered an interpretive pop-up trail with five temporary exhibits that were up for two weeks. The trail marked where miners walked to Blair Mountain, ready for battle.

Director of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum Kinsey New-Walker said the event was so successful, attendees didn’t want to see the markers come down.

“We got a lot of feedback from the centennial where folks were like, ‘Make these markers permanent,’” New-Walker said. “These stories are virtually invisible. So the thing that was missing was these history sites in the landscape and so, the Mine Wars Museum launched a new project to have something permanent.”

They called the project, “Courage in the Hollers: Mapping the Miners’ Struggle for a Union.” It’s a public history project that has so far secured resources to install two monuments in the West Virginia coalfields.

Along with some other partners, the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum is helping to organize two events this Labor Day weekend, one in Marmet and one in Clothier.

“We chose Marmet and Clothier because they are typically the beginning and ending points of the march,” New-Walker said. “Marmet is where mine workers and their families gathered and prepared to march.”

The statute in Marmet is of Mother Jones. There will also be silhouettes of miners who participated in the March, laying down their work gear and picking up their weapons.

“One thing about the miners’ march on Blair Mountain is we don’t have a comprehensive list of families who participated or miners who participated because of the secrecy and the suppression that surrounded the events and the aftermath,” New-Walker said. “But the silhouettes are actually community members who have participated in this process, shared their stories and helped make the monuments a reality.”

Tom Long and Patty McGrew, Marmet community members posing for the monument silhouettes.

Silhouettes will also stand in Clothier where, according to New-Walker, “thousands pass through on their way to the front. Volunteer nurses set up field hospitals, and others set up kitchens and ammunition depots.”

The physical monuments and trails are important because the miners’ march was removed from textbooks.

“Back in the 1930s, we have a letter from the governor at the time who stated that he wanted no mention of Mother Jones or the miners’ march in the state’s history textbook,” New-Walker explained. “That kind of sets off this trend of not talking about this history. So visitors who come to the museum can actually flip through that display and see books and letters for the 1930s all the way up to the 1970s.”

“The miners’ march and the act of people having the power is a different power structure than they were used to,” New-Walker said. “It was a moment in time and in the Jim Crow era where people banded together across racial, ethnic, religious and gender lines. New stories continue to surface because miners and their families have been hushed. Either if it’s from censorship from the state, but also, after the Battle of Blair Mountain, miners were put on trial for treason.”

New-Walker said the efforts have been community driven and the project has brought a powerful message.

Community members of Marmet stand outside George Buckley Community Center, planning for the monument that will soon be dedicated there.

“People brought artifacts to community meetings and shared stories about how weapons were potentially used in the Battle of Blair Mountain and photographs of the places that they grew up.”

“In a lot of ways, I think that this history can be a chance for us to rebuild ourselves too,” she said. “For me, there’s a lot of pride in this history because like the folks that were coming out to the community meetings, I am also the daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter of union coal miners. It’s a pride point for me, and I think it is for a lot of people to come out and have something positive to share about their history, their ancestors.”

Monuments will be unveiled in Marmet and Clothier this Labor Day weekend.

Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022 at 1 p.m. at the UMWA Local Hall 2395, End of Coal Valley Road, off Hwy 17, Clothier, West Virginia, 25183

Monday, Sept. 5, 2022 at 4 p.m. in Marmet at the George Buckley Community Center, 8505 MacCorkle Ave, Marmet, West Virginia, 25315

Project partners include the International United Mine Workers of America, UMWA Local 1440, the West Virginia Humanities Council, and the Berea College Appalachian Center.

Those interested in attending are encouraged to RSVP by Sept. 1: https://tinyurl.com/monumentrsvp

Us & Them Encore: Blair Mountain

The battle of Blair Mountain in 1921 might be West Virginia's ultimate ‘us and them’ story — labor versus absentee landowners; working class versus ruling class; West Virginia versus the world. This Us & Them episode was honored with an award from The Virginias Associated Press Broadcasters.

More than a hundred years ago West Virginia was home to our nation’s most violent labor uprising.

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 learn what precipitated the battle.

The episode was honored with an award from The Virginias Associated Press Broadcasters.

For more information about Charles B. Keeney’s book “The Road to Blair Mountain: Saving a Mine Wars Battlefield from King Coal.”

For more information about Mary Hott’s album “Devil in the Hills: A Coal Reckoning.”

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

UMWA protest in midtown New York City in July 2021.

Actor Susan Sarandon speaking at a UMWA Rally in Midtown Manhattan.

Actor Susan Sarandon speaks with Us & Them host Trey Kay at a UMWA Rally in NYC in July 2021

West Virginia Historians Recognize 100th Anniversary Of Mine War Trials

One hundred years ago, the West Virginia Mine Wars drew to a close as several union organizers were put on trial for treason in the aftermath of the Battle of Blair Mountain.

Recently, Shepherd University’s Center for Appalachian Studies and Communities worked with mine war museum Coal Country Tours to recognize this overlooked part of history. For the Charles Town treason trials’ 100 year anniversary, panel discussions explored their importance at the school and through a live concert featuring period songs about workers’ rights at Charles Town’s Old Opera House.

After the Battle of Blair Mountain, a notable battle fought between miners and coal companies over labor rights, over 500 union coal miners were indicted on charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to murder, and treason against the state. Among those charged were United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) organizers like Bill Blizzard, Frank Keeney, and Fred Mooney.

Though the conflict happened in the state’s southern coalfields, the trials themselves were moved to the other side of the state in Charles Town.

Doug Estepp, who runs Coal Country Tours, says the decision to move the trials was because the area had no prior coal mining history.

“If the trials had taken place down there, it would have probably led to fighting again or trouble at the very least,” Estepp said. “So a change of venue was granted and it was brought to Charles Town in the Eastern Panhandle, far away from the coal fields.”

The first and most publicized trial was that of Bill Blizzard, a union leader who was involved with the Battle of Blair Mountain and other disputes like the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike.

Chuck Keeney, great-grandson of fellow union leader Frank Keeney and history professor at Southern West Virginia Community College, says Blizzard was put on trial first because of his direct involvement at Blair Mountain. Keeney says the coal companies hoped to dismantle the UMWA by targeting notable figures.

“They were hoping that they could delegitimize the UMWA and say that the UMWA itself was a treasonous organization. And then by consequence, labor unions were treasonous organizations,” Keeney said.

An original copy of the petition for the trials’ change of venue with a list of the indicted miners. This is one of the artifacts at Wess Harris’ When Miners March Traveling Museum, which was on display at Charles Town’s Old Opera House Friday evening.

Walter Allen was the only miner convicted of treason. He was granted bail but skipped out and disappeared from the region. Rev. James Wilburn and his son John were also convicted of murder after causing the first casualty at Blair Mountain. The trials eventually moved away from Charles Town during Frank Keeney’s trial, which moved twice to Morgan County and Greenbrier County before ending with no verdict.

Though most of the indicted miners were either acquitted or never tried in court, union membership dropped from around 55,000 members to under 1,000. Estepp calls the trials the final nail in the coffin for the UMWA during that period.

“The UMW was pretty much exhausted, both financially and physically after the march, the strikes, the Battle of Blair Mountain. And so what was left of the treasury was basically expended,” Estepp said.

Judge David Hammer, of the 23rd Judicial Circuit Court, says that even though the trials destroyed the union, the conflict eventually resulted in more federal protections for workers like the National Labor Relations Act and the Mine Safety and Health Act. His office is in the same courthouse where Blizzard was tried.

Copy of the original jury list for Bill Blizzard’s trial, stored at the Jefferson County Courthouse.

“So many of the concerns that were at the forefront in 1922, have actually been resolved by federal action. So looked at from that perspective, the mine wars did have a tremendously beneficial purpose,” Hammer said.

Though the trials happened a century ago, Keeney argues its legacy still matters today. He says the more West Virginia’s history is understood, the more its people can take pride in their home state.

“If you’re from West Virginia, and you’ve lived here your whole life, it’s kind of a state with an inferiority complex. And the trials themselves are trials that show people that are defiant,” Keeney said.

The courtroom inside the Jefferson County Courthouse as it appears today. Aside from some cosmetic changes and technological upgrades, this is the same room where the mine war trials were held a century ago.

The Jefferson County Courthouse where the Blizzard trial was held is still intact today. Much of the courtroom still resembles what it looked like a century ago. Copies of jury lists and affidavits from the original trial are kept at the courthouse, but the original documents are stored at West Virginia University.

Remembering The Battle Of Blair Mountain And Its Significance To American History

We travel back in time 100 years, when West Virginia was home to our nation's most violent labor uprising — the Battle of Blair Mountain.

This story was featured in WVPB’s series “Coal — And The Way Forward” and aired in West Virginia Morning on Sept. 15, 2021.

We travel back in time 100 years, when West Virginia was home to our nation’s most violent labor uprising.

For some, the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921 was a watershed moment when coal workers decided that their rights were worth fighting and even dying for. The armed insurrection pitted 10,000 against 3,000 heavily armed coal industry guards and state troopers.

It was the largest labor uprising in American history and the largest armed conflict since the Civil War. Us & Them producer Trey Kay followed the path of the miners on their march to Mingo to learn what precipitated the conflict.

An Enigma In Modern History

The Battle of Blair Mountain was a complex conflict that was the result of a number of social and economic forces that came to a head in West Virginia’s coal country after World War I.

The result was an armed march from Marmet to Mingo.

To understand the complex history, we followed the path of the miners on their march to Mingo, and we brought along the foremost expert on this event — Prof. Charles Keeney.

Following World War I, the economic forces at play in the West Virginia coal fields hit miners hard. They became pawns in a power battle between the coal industry and the gathering momentum of the union movement.

“So the coal industry in West Virginia felt it was crucial to their bottom line to keep the union out,” Keeney said. “The United Mine Workers, in order to keep their contracts in these other states, felt it was crucial to organize West Virginia to keep their organization afloat.”

The West Virginia coalfields were ripe for organization. Working conditions were hazardous, and the health of miners was constantly at risk. Miners were paid with company currency. And workers could only spend their pay at company-owned stores.

For over 20 years, mining families had protested, organized, and sometimes even gone to war with their employers in order to improve these conditions. In 1921, they finally had enough. The last straw was the murder of one of their greatest allies: a chief of police in Mingo County named Sid Hatfield.

That was on Aug. 1, 1921.

“And on Aug. 7, they had this huge meeting at the Capitol with 5,000 or 6,000 miners,” Keeney said. “They tried to petition the governor. Gov. Morgan would not meet with the miners. That’s when my great-grandfather famously came out and told the miners that the only way you can get your rights is with a high-powered rifle — told them to go home and await the call to March.”

As it turns out, Keeney’s great-grandfather was Frank Keeney — a central figure in the West Virginia union movement and a primary organizer of the march on Mingo.

Thousands March

As Keeney and I drove along the route followed by the miners, he described what must have been a spectacle.

“You had of the front guard, like a vanguard there was up front,” Keeney said. “And then, you know, the line of miners that were marching were stretched out for numerous miles … By the time you get to Blair, there’s at least 10,000. There’s probably by the end of the battle, somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 involved.”

The battle of Blair Mountain became inevitable. Every time conflict could have been avoided, outside forces pushed the miners and the coal company back toward violence.

“This is Route 17 we’re on, by the way,” Keeney said. “And this was an actual road in 1921. It was a dirt trail. It wasn’t paved or anything.”

When Keeney and I get to the top, we are standing at the high ground where the mine guards and state troopers set up machine gun positions to attack the miners advancing up the steep slope of Blair Mountain.

“And the fighting continued on through Aug. 31 until Sept. 4, when federal troops arrived at Blair,” Keeney said.

“So there was the battle, the United States Army, federal troops come here, and from what I understand, the miners lay down their arms.”

“That’s correct,” Keeney said. “Of course, many of them were World War I veterans. And their beef was not with the federal government. Their beef was with the mine guards, with the state government. And so, they said they weren’t anti-American, even though they were often painted as being such.”

“Did the people who brought this, did they gain anything?”

“Yeah, the initial aftermath was it got worse instead of getting better,” Keeney said. “But in some ways, the threat of more industrial violence is going to be a catalyst to encourage reform that is going to be taken on by the federal government the following decade.

“We talk about veterans of wars and talk about them sacrificing themselves for the freedoms that we enjoy. Well, what about the eight-hour workday, the 40-hour work week, weekends, pensions, unemployment benefits, all of those things? They had to be fought for and they had to be bled for and in some cases died for.

“So, that’s why you want to remember what happened there. Americans need to understand the significance of labor history and unions in building America and turning America into a place where liberty can be enjoyed.”

This story originally aired in the Us & Them episode titled “Blair Mountain” on Sept. 9, 2021.

Us & Them: Blair Mountain

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.

For more information about Charles B. Keeney’s book “The Road to Blair Mountain: Saving a Mine Wars Battlefield from King Coal.”

For more information about Mary Hott’s album “Devil in the Hills: A Coal Reckoning.”

This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the West Virginia Humanities Council and the CRC Foundation.

Book: Blair Mountain Told Through Eyes Of Participants

A new book looks at the Battle of Blair Mountain through the eyes of people who were actually there. “On Dark and Bloody Ground” is compiled from a series of oral histories collected in 1972.

Author Anne Lawrence collected the original recordings and worked with WVU Press and the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum to publish the book in time for the 100th anniversary of the battle. She spoke with Eric Douglas about the process.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Douglas: Describe how you got started on this project.

Lawrence: I wrote this book in 1972, when I was just 21 years old. At the time, I was a junior at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, studying history and sociology. And this oral history project was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. I was not the original grant recipient. The original grant recipient was the Miner’s Voice, which was the newspaper of Miners for Democracy, which was at that time the reform movement in the United Mine Workers Union.

As luck would have it, one of my very close friends was working in the Miners for Democracy campaign. And she said, I think I know someone who can do it. That was me. So they gave me a call. I thought it was a fantastic opportunity. I took a leave of absence from Swarthmore College and drove to Charleston and spent the next six months driving around southern West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, and parts of southwestern Virginia with my little portable tape recorder, and cassette tapes, trying to find people who still remembered the mine wars of the 1920s and 30s.

Douglas: Had you ever done an oral history before?

Lawrence: No, I had never done an oral history before. So I had to learn about oral history, I had to learn about West Virginia history. And I had to learn how to find the people who remembered these events.

Douglas: How did you track down the miners you spoke to?

Lawrence: Well, I worked through the Miners for Democracy network. I did work through the Black Lung Association, which was working at that time to win health care benefits for miners who suffered from black lung disease. So they had many older members. I had contacts in Vista. And it actually was a little bit like a snowball process. Once I got out in the field and started meeting people I would ask if they knew any other old-timers who might remember these events. And they would put me in touch with their friends and contacts. So once I got in the field, one contact often led to another.

Douglas: One of the first things any person who records oral histories knows is sometimes you have to earn somebody’s trust before they’ll really open up to you.

Lawrence: I spent a lot of time sitting on people’s porches. I went to senior centers. At the time I was a smoker. I’ve subsequently quit smoking but at the time I would carry my cigarettes with me. And I would sit on someone’s front porch with them and offer them a cigarette and just sit there. Some people’s trust I did not win. And those people I didn’t interview so I just took it one person at a time.

Douglas: Ultimately how many interviews did you conduct?

Lawrence: I think I recorded about 80 interviews. They are somewhat over 40 that appear in the book that’s just been published.

Douglas: For the purposes of this book, it’s strictly about the Battle of Blair Mountain.

Lawrence: It’s mostly about the Battle of Blair Mountain. There are a few interviews with coal miners and their wives and family members describing the ultimate unionization of southern West Virginia in 1933 during the early years of the New Deal. So the book has an arc to it. These initial struggles to organize the southern West Virginia coalfields bookended by the victory that occurred in 1933.

Douglas: What’s your biggest takeaway from your recordings? And then revisiting them to publish this book?

Lawrence: This book is about a lengthy, lengthy struggle to unionize the coal fields. It’s about the participation of ordinary people in shaping their own history. I did not interview public figures. I interviewed ordinary people who, in fact, had a tremendous historic impact. So one of the takeaways I would draw now is that ordinary people can shape their destiny through their own actions.

Douglas: Tell me about how you came to work with Catherine Moore and the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum.

Lawrence: It was a remarkable story. I had been working over the last few years to get this material into the public domain. It had originally been circulated as a type script manuscript and in the form of an NIH project report, but it was never formally published. I had reached out initially to see if we could get the collection of tapes donated to a library, and I was able to donate the tapes to George Washington University Labor History Collection. They assisted me in digitizing the material and putting it up online.

As part of that process of trying to get this work into the hands of people who might be interested, I did some online research and I discovered the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum, which is a wonderful recent effort to build a library of people’s history in Matewan. I thought they might be interested in it and I reached out by email to Catherine Moore, who was the president of the museum. A few minutes later, I get a response from Catherine, that says, “I can’t believe it’s you! I’ve been looking for you.”

She had discovered a copy of the manuscript and had an idea that it should be published in connection with the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain. She subsequently put me in touch with Derek Krissoff, who is the head of the West Virginia University Press. And we took it from there. So I’m extremely grateful to Catherine for helping me make those connections and for having the vision that this would make a book now, that would be of interest to West Virginians, and others.

Hear the oral history of Grace Jackson.

Douglas: Were there any favorite stories from the book?

Lawrence: The book opens with an interview with a woman named Grace Jackson, who had been a girl living on Cabin Creek when Mother Jones came there during the strike of 1912 and 13. She has recollections of being with a crowd of miners and their families walking down the creek behind Mother Jones. She was very elderly when I talked to her in 1972. And she had some of the earliest recollections. I talked to people who fought on both sides of the Battle of Blair Mountain. I think one of the funniest stories I encountered was a teenage boy who had gone up to the mountain to fight on the union side. And word had somehow gotten back to his family that he had been killed on the mountain. He eventually came back home, walked into his home where they were having a wake for him. He was there quite resurrected from the dead. The family was quite astonished. But he told a lively story about that experience.

Douglas: You interviewed people that fought on the side of the mines. Did those people regret fighting?

Lawrence: I talked to a number of people who had fought on the anti-union side who were coal miners who had essentially been conscripted to go up onto the mountain. I think they did experience regret for having done that. One of the women I spoke to had two brothers who were on opposite sides of that conflict. They had been in a shooting war, essentially shooting at each other. And she talked about how that had really irreparably torn apart their family.

Douglas: Is there anything we haven’t talked about?

Lawrence: Cecil Roberts, the current president of the United Mine Workers provided an afterword, which was very moving to me. And it’s a beautiful piece of work. The story is that Catherine and I thought it’d be wonderful if he would write an afterword and we sent him a pre-publication copy. We didn’t hear back from him for several weeks, and we thought we probably wouldn’t hear from him. And then he contacted us, said that he loved the book. And in fact, I had interviewed his grandmother.

He had grown up on Cabin Creek and was a descendant of many of the participants in the events I had documented. He drew the connection with his own family history and the roots of his commitment to coal miners and coal miner unionism.

The book is available through WVU Press. Portions of the project have been digitized and are available online through the George Washington University Library. For more information on the activities around the Battle of Blair Mountain, visit the Blair 100 website.

This story is part of a series of interviews with authors from, or writing about, Appalachia.