Here is a draft of a paper on the archaeology and importance of Blair Mountain, discussing some of the larger lessons that we can learn from the battle written by Brandon Nida
Brandon Nida is a doctoral student in archaeology at UC Berkeley writing his dissertation on Blair Mountain.
Citizens rallied today to call on Morgan Stanley to review their financing of Arch Coal’s Adkins Fork surface mine permit and other operations at the Blair Mountain battlefield in Logan County, WV. The battlefield is the site of the largest labor conflict in US history, and is deemed eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Mountaintop removal mining at Adkins Fork would threaten the history and tourism potential of the area, as well as adversely affect the watershed and the health of the nearby community of Blair.
Brandon Nida, an organizer with the Blair Mountain Heritage Alliance says, “Morgan Stanley has one of the strongest reputations for responsible lending. We are asking that they review their relationship with Arch Coal and ask Arch to drop the Adkins Fork and other permits that would impact the Blair Mountain battlefield.”
“The Adkins Fork permit would destroy an extremely important part of the Blair Mountain battlefield, one of the only portions we know for certain was occupied by the miners,” stated Kenneth King, a local resident and longtime preservation advocate. “If surface mining is allowed at the battlefield, our heritage will be erased along with the potential for long-term tourism around the site.”
The town of Blair has already been depopulated over the last decade and its water supply heavily polluted due to previous surface mine operations.
“The Adkins Fork permit is right over our heads here in Blair,” says Carlos Gore, a resident of Blair. “I’ve seen my community pretty much destroyed, and I don’t want to see any more damage. Constant blasting, dust rolling off the site, machinery at all hours of the night, and people getting sick is what is going to happen if they surface mine around here again.”
According to sworn depositions from Arch Coal employees, Arch’s executives during the 1990s “knew dynamite blasts and huge earth-moving machines…would make life so miserable for many Blair residents that they would want to sell their homes and move.” Once the residents sold, they were required to sign an Option to Purchase document that barred them from living or owning property in a 25 square mile area near the mine at Blair.
The rally corresponds with an investor risk document released by Rainforest Action Network titled Arch Coal, the Blair Mountain Battlefield, and Bank Human Rights Commitments. The report details the investment risk involved in financing companies that engage in surface mining operations such as the Adkins Fork Permit at Blair Mountain. Activists attempted to present the report in person, but were prevented by building security.
According to the report, the Adkins Fork permit and other surface mining in the Blair area violates Morgan Stanley’s Environmental Policy Statement, their Statement on Human Rights, and the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
“We want to show how putting your money in risky operations such as the Adkins Fork permit is not just morally wrong, but is a good way to lose your money. With Arch’s stocks plummeting to historic lows and their credit score near where Patriot Coal’s was before their bankruptcy, we think banks and investors have much smarter places to put their money,” says Brandon Nida.
Rally to Stop MTR and Save Blair Mountain
Join us March 5th to put pressure on the banks funding Mountaintop Removal operations like the Adkins Fork permit at the historically recognized site of Blair Mountain.
Meet up at the Riverfront Park at Kanawha Blvd East and Summers St in Charleston, WV at High Noon!! We will march a half-mile to Morgan Stanley’s Charleston branch, where we will have a rally to stop MTR and the destruction of Blair Mountain!!
Watch our video explaining why the Adkins Fork is so harmful.
Without financing from banks like Morgan Stanley, companies such as Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources would not be able to engage in the destructive and harmful practice of Mountaintop Removal mining.
It is time to demand that these financial institutions be held accountable for the human rights violations they are engaged in. We will be rallying at Morgan Stanley’s branch in Charleston in order to demand that they live up to their promise to ‘do the right thing‘.
Funding the destruction of communities, mountains, heritage, and health is not the ‘right thing’!!
Wear your red bandanas! Bring your signs!
For more information:
On our larger campaign focused on the Adkins Fork permit: http://blairmountain.org/233/
On the practice of MTR:
http://www.ohvec.org/issues/mountaintop_removal/articles/mtr_fact_sheet.pdf
On the health impacts of MTR:
http://acheact.org/
On the banks that are funding MTR:
http://ran.org/coal-finance-reportcard-2012
On Morgan Stanley’s Code of Ethics
http://www.morganstanley.com/about/company/governance/ethics.html
Many people have not heard of the Battle of Blair Mountain, let alone a place called Adkins Fork in Logan County, West Virginia. But in 1921, the Adkins Fork area was the scene of an intense battle between miners attempting to organize a union and a private coal industry army trying to stop them. It is part of the larger Blair Mountain battlefield that stretches 14-miles along Spruce Fork Ridge, site of the largest labor battle in US history.
Ten thousand miners fought for five days against the private army entrenched on the ridgeline, with both sides having high-powered rifles and machine guns. Three regiments of federal troops sent by President Harding were finally able to halt the conflict. The Battle of Blair Mountain was a struggle for workers rights and played a critical role in the history of labor unions in America. This site has national significance and must be preserved for future generations.
Currently Adkins Fork and the larger Blair Mountain battlefield is threatened by an extremely destructive form of coal mining called mountaintop removal (MTR). This is a process where mountains are blasted and the leftover material is pushed into valleys, filling them up and creating a flat moonscape where rolling hills and hardwood forest once existed. MTR is a process that in recent years has increasingly been tied to health problems such as rare forms of cancer, respiratory illnesses, and birth defects.
Watch our video explaining why this permit is important to stop:
At the foot of Blair Mountain is the town of Blair, where we live and work. In the late 1990s Blair was a community of about 700 people, currently there are only about 70 residents left. Aggressive buyouts preceded plans to MTR mine around the town and led to the systematic depopulation of the area. The people who have remained have had to live with constant blasting behind the town, carcinogenic dust rolling off the site, and the contamination of drinking water with heavy metals. But people from Blair were some of the first coalfield residents to speak out against MTR, something that is hard to do in central Appalachia where the coal industry dominates the social and political landscape.
Currently we are fending off six different permits that would impact the battlefield and the communities around it. Our biggest struggle is with the Adkins Fork permit, which is situated in the heart of the battlefield and right above the headwaters of the town of Blair. The Adkins Fork permit is currently up for renewal, and we have mounted a major campaign to block this permit. This campaign will be a tough one and will continue over the next few months and even years.
The Adkins Fork permit, which is being sought by Arch Coal (NYSE: ACI), is symbolic of the increasing risk that investors and banks are taking by investing in companies like Arch Coal that have MTR operations. It is a permit that has multiple deficiencies, and is being contested by a wide range of concerned citizens, including community members, retired coal miners, archaeologists, labor groups, environmentalists, and regular people across central Appalachia and the rest of the nation.
If Arch Coal is able to proceed with the Adkins Fork permit, they would destroy one of the only areas we know for certain was occupied by the miners during the Battle. Along with this permit, there are currently an estimated 17,000 acres permitted or under review for the Spruce Fork watershed. The area is comprised of geological strata high in selenium. Selenium is a bio-accumulative compound that is highly detrimental to the nervous system of animals and humans, and is extremely expensive to contain or remove from the ecosystems once it is released. This small compound is one of the reasons Patriot Coal, a major operator of MTR mining in Central Appalachia, was forced to publicly halt all MTR operations just last month. Streams in the Spruce Fork watershed have already been shown to have higher amounts of selenium than regulation allows.
In addition to Arch Coal seeking a permit that has a wide coalition of people opposing it and which has high levels of selenium, the Adkins Fork has many other deficiencies . For example, the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office refuses to sign off on this permit due to the destruction of major archaeological resources. Valley fills, of which the Adkins Fork permit has three, have been coming under increasing scrutiny by federal regulators. With the stripping of thousands of acres of vegetation and topsoil, the risk of flooding becomes more prevalent. As more peer-reviewed science shows the link between MTR and severe health problems, companies such as Arch are finding it harder to externalize these risks onto communities such as the town of Blair
For these reasons and more, those who continue to invest in companies like Arch Coal that conduct strip mining operations such as the Adkins Fork permit take on increasing risk. Right now, Arch Coal’s stock is down to around seven dollars per share from a high of around 73 per share in 2008. Arch Coal’s credit rating is Ba3 sub-prime, just one level above where Patriot Coal (NYSE: PCX) was before going bankrupt.
The Adkins Fork permit is just one permit by Arch Coal that would impact the town of Blair and the Blair Mountain battlefield. Companies such as Arch are attempting to destroy not just the environment, but whole communities, heritage, and people’s health. Citizen groups and environmental organizations have become more proficient in being able to challenge and block these permits. In fact, one of the only operations to have been halted in mid-operation was in Blair – the Daltex surface mine operated by Arch Coal. In addition, the Spruce No. 1 surface mine, which is the largest MTR mine ever permitted in central Appalachia and which sits on another ridge above Blair, has been the subject of intense litigation for over a decade.
For those of you who would like to take part in stopping companies like Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources (ANR) from destroying the Blair Mountain battlefield and other mountains in central Appalachia, there are definite ways you can help and join in our efforts. Even if you live far away, we need you to take a stand and join in our Adkins Fork campaign and the larger efforts to preserve Blair Mountain and stop MTR.
The first step in this is working in solidarity with a group of community members, organizers, retired coal miners, archaeologists, historians, environmentalists, and others who will be taking part in a public conference with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection this Thursday. While we attempt to show the WV DEP why this permit renewal should be denied, we need as many people as possible to circulate and sign our petition directed at the banks and investors who enable companies like Arch Coal to engage in these destructive operations.
This is not just about one permit, or one mountain, or one community, but is symbolic of the larger problem of destructive practices such as MTR, and the increasingly reckless investment and financing of these types of operations.
Take a stand today, and join the team. Tell banks and investors to stop financing the destruction of our homes and health. Stand with us and stay connected as we move through this national campaign. Only together can we stop destructive extractive processes such as MTR.
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As part of our preservation campaign, we systematically monitor surface mine permits in the Blair area. We maintain and update our permit database with data from on-the-ground monitoring and through research on permit applications. Part of our mission is to provide various stakeholders with the most current information about what is happening with each permit we are challenging.
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These photos are part of this effort, and were taken today. They show the Camp Branch permit (which is an Alpha operation) and the Left Fork permit (Arch operation). The Camp Branch is winding down operations, and we have successfully held them 1000ft away from the battlefield boundary. The Left Fork permit is a complex one, with some mining in the late 80s and early 90s, but with areas near the battlefield just being opened up.
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Here is the press release in full, as well as links to the campaign video and our letter writing campaign:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJPhBDykMZM
Campaign Info: http://blairmountain.org/letters-for-adkins-fork/
Press Release:
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nov. 19, 2012
Contact: Brandon Nida
Organizer, Blair Mountain Heritage Alliance
304-583-5437
blairheritage@gmail.com
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Preservationists Initiate Campaign to Block Surface Mine Permit on Blair Mountain
Say Adkins Fork Permit will Destroy Important Part of the Battlefield
BLAIR, W.Va. — Community members, local organizations, and national groups are coming together in opposition to the renewal of an Arch Coal surface mine that threatens the Blair Mountain battlefield and town of Blair in Logan County, West Virginia.
The battlefield is where in 1921 the largest labor conflict in US history occurred. An estimated ten thousand coalminers fought for five days against a coal-operator backed army until federal troops were finally able to peaceably halt the conflict.
“The Adkins Fork permit would destroy one of the most important areas of the battlefield,” says Brandon Nida, an archaeologist from UC Berkeley and organizer with the Blair Mountain Heritage Alliance (BMHA) located in Blair. “From archaeological surveys, this is the one of the only areas we positively know was occupied by the miners. We’ve found ammunition from the miners, we know where they fought and died. This is some of the most hallowed ground in labor history.”
“The importance of this battle in both West Virginian and US history is enormous,” continues Nida. “It propelled the UMWA to become the backbone of the labor movement and helped them form the United Steelworkers and the United Autoworkers. This battle significantly shaped the course of the American 20th century.”
“As a West Virginian and a union steelworker, I feel it is extremely important to preserve this battlefield,” says BMHA board member Jeremy Hatfield. “Every work shift I go without an accident, every weekend I get to spend with my family, every day that I get to clock out after eight hours, I thank the miners that fought at Blair Mountain for those rights”.
The town of Blair already has had extensive mountaintop removal mining in the area, and the Spruce No. 1 surface mine is currently in operation above the community. Since the 1990s the town has dropped from a population of 700 to roughly 70 people today.
“This permit adds to the cumulative impacts for the Spruce Fork watershed which has an estimated 17,000 acres permitted or with current operations,” says Kenneth King, a local resident who has worked to preserve Blair Mountain for the last twenty years. “And its not just the environment, I’m also really concerned about how this is going to affect people’s health.” Recently, numerous peer-reviewed health studies have linked mountaintop removal mining to health hazards such as rare forms of cancer, respiratory issues, and birth defects. Last week, Patriot Coal, one of the largest surface mining companies in Appalachia, publicly recognized the impacts of surface-mining on nearby communities.
The Adkins Fork campaign is being initiated with a letter writing campaign during the WV DEP’s open comment period for the permit, which ends Nov. 23rd. “We need everyone to write in, but that is just the first step. This is going to be a tough campaign against one of the largest coal companies in the world. We need people to stay involved as we take this campaign to the national level,” says King.
More information about the letter writing campaign can be found at www.blairmountain.org
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November 19, 2012 @ 11:19 AM
2012/The Herald-Dispatch
BLAIR, W.Va. (AP) — They’ve lost at every turn with courts and regulators, but activists trying to protect West Virginia’s historic Blair Mountain from strip mining aren’t giving up.
Residents, environmentalists, history buffs and others are now fighting the renewal of a mining permit that St. Louis-based Arch Coal is seeking from the state Department of Environmental Protection. The public comment period on the Adkins Fork permit ends Friday.
In 1921, some 10,000 coal miners who had been trying to unionize for years marched to the southern West Virginia town of Blair and scrambled up the mountain to battle a dug-in army of police and hired guns who had homemade bombs and machine guns. At least 16 men died before the miners surrendered to federal troops in what became the nation’s largest armed uprising since the Civil War.
“We’ve found ammunition from the miners; we know where they fought and died,” he said. “This is some of the most hallowed ground in labor history.”
Kenneth King, a Blair resident who has tried to preserve the battlefield for decades, said the mining would only add to the cumulative impact on the Spruce Fork watershed, where some 17,000 acres are already permitted or being mined.
“This is going to be a tough campaign against one of the largest coal companies in the world,” King said, urging people to stay involved as the fight continues.
A spokeswoman for Arch didn’t immediately comment Monday.
Archaeologist Brandon Nida, who said he has found artifacts in the permit area, says the Adkins Fork permit would destroy one of the most important sections of the battlefield.
“We’ve found ammunition from the miners; we know where they fought and died,” he said. “This is some of the most hallowed ground in labor history.”
Nida calls the significance of the Battle of Blair Mountain “enormous” for the U.S. labor movement.
It helped the United Mine Workers of America become the backbone of the labor movement, he said, and helped form the United Steelworkers and the United Autoworkers.
The 1,600-acre battlefield was briefly added to the National Register of Historic Places, and then removed when private property owners objected. Several groups sued to have that status restored but lost their court challenge in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., last month.
It was just the latest of several setbacks.
Last summer, the state Department of Environmental Protection ruled that about 30 percent of the land is exempt from that declaration because it’s already covered under mining permits, while other areas are exempt because there is clear evidence of past mining activity.
Extensive mountaintop removal mining around Blair has already decimated the population. Since the 1990s, the number of residents has dropped from about 700 to 70.
For additional coverage off this story visit:
Yahoo News – Anthropology and Archeology
WSAZ Ch.3 Charleston, WV
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CLICK HERE FOR THE SAMPLE LETTER (printable pdf)
CLICK HERE FOR ADKINS FORK INFORMATION SHEET (printable pdf)
LINK TO WV DEP’S E-PERMIT FOR ADKINS FORK (link)
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This will be a tough campaign, and we will need all the help we can get. The first part of this campaign is the easiest. We need everyone to write a letter and send it to the WV Department of Environmental Protection by November 23. It is best to handwrite these letters, but we know not everyone can do that, so we have written out a form letter below. Print it, sign it, and stick it in the mail!
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As we move forward with this campaign over the next few months, we will have a series of events and drives that you can come out to or that you can participate in at home. Some of the events will be spread out across the nation, so even if you are not in West Virginia you can pitch in.
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CLICK HERE FOR THE SAMPLE LETTER (printable pdf)
CLICK HERE FOR ADKINS FORK INFORMATION SHEET (printable pdf)
LINK TO WV DEP’S E-PERMIT FOR ADKINS FORK (link)
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Blair Mountain Heritage Alliance
www.blairmountain.org
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Dear friends, we are currently initiating a directed campaign to challenge and block Arch Coal’s attempt to renew the Adkins Fork permit at Blair Mountain. This permit is one of the most significant, as it lies in the heart of the battlefield and is the permit closest to the town of Blair.
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This will be a tough campaign, and we will need all the help we can get. The first part of this campaign is the easiest. We need everyone to write a letter and send it to the WV Department of Environmental Protection by November 24. It is best to handwrite these letters, but we know not everyone can do that, so we have written out a form letter below. Print it, sign it, and stick it in the mail!
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As we move forward with this campaign over the next few months, we will have a series of events and drives that you can come out to or that you can participate in at home. Some of the events will be spread out across the nation, so even if you are not in West Virginia you can pitch in.
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CLICK HERE FOR THE SAMPLE LETTER (printable pdf)
CLICK HERE FOR ADKINS FORK INFORMATION SHEET (printable pdf)
LINK TO WV DEP’S E-PERMIT FOR ADKINS FORK (link)
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Blair Mountain Heritage Alliance
www.blairmountain.org
Blair is located in Logan County, West Virginia.
Ninety-one years ago, the town of Blair was packed with coalminers fighting in the largest labor uprising in US history. Just a few feet away from where we live in Blair today is an old stone foundation of the railroad depot. In 1921, this would have been bustling with grim miners set on attacking an army backed by coal operators and machine guns. The miners commandeered trains, trucks, and automobiles. They also arrived by foot and bedded down in the schoolhouse bottom right in town across the creek from the depot. They controlled over 500 square miles, and wore red bandanas around their necks that made them known as the ‘Redneck Army’.
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These mining families were fighting to gain basic human freedoms such as the right to collectively bargain. They fought to overthrow a system of oppression by the coal operators, of the company town, of mine guards, of unfair wages and dangerous working conditions. They came together from many different backgrounds, religions, races, and ethnicities. They fought for four days until federal forces stopped most of the fighting on the 14-mile front along ridges of Blair Mountain.
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Miners showing off bombs dropped on them by anti-union forces.
The miners were able to break through the anti-union defensive lines at least once before three regiments of US soldiers moved into the combat area to quell the industrial war. After a nationwide lull in union organizing due to economic and political issues, in the mid-1930s the United Mine Workers and other unions were given the legal right to organize. The cadre of leaders from the battle, most notably Bill Blizzard, used the credibility they had gained in the Mine Wars to organize the southern coalfields of West Virginia in a matter of months.
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The UMWA went on to become the most dominant labor union of the twentieth century. Organizers from the UMWA helped form the United Steelworkers and the United Autoworkers. As mechanization set in during the 1940s and 1950s, coalminers across the United States began losing their jobs by the hundreds of thousands. This created a great outmigration of Appalachian coalminers to the industrial centers of the nation such as Detroit and Pittsburg. These displaced mountaineers carried a strong and militant union culture that helped fuel the rise of unions in the twentieth century.
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Bill Blizzard, leader of the Redneck Army, speaks at a later date.
Because of the UMWA, things got a lot better in West Virginia. While the UMWA had some problems that shouldn’t be glossed over by those with an honest interest in labor unionism, they helped raise the standard of living for people in central Appalachia immensely. They built hospitals, they provided health care, they helped ensure that a fair share of money made by the coal industry stayed in coalfield communities. They made mining a much safer occupation where mining families could expect their miners to make it home at the end of a shift. Maybe most importantly, the UMWA provided hope that a better life could be had. They gave hope that a dominant and invasive industry could be opposed, that regular people could gain some control over their own lives.
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Since the 1980s, the UMWA has been aggressively beaten back by union-busting companies. Most notorious was Massey Energy, which confronted the UMWA head on throughout the 1980s until their recent acquisition by Alpha Natural Resources. But possibly even more dangerous were the companies working quietly behind the scenes, such as Arch and Peabody, who spun their union operations into separate operations that became Patriot Coal, and which saddled with huge amounts of pensions versus production to start out. The coal companies did this to purge their ranks of unionists, and to rid themselves of obligations made to their workers such as pensions for retirees. Patriot has since gone bankrupt, and the UMWA is in a tough fight to make sure their pensioners are taken care of properly.
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Even more than pensions, with the decrease in unionism through the 1990s into today, coal mines have become more dangerous. Recently their have been some serious mine disasters such as Sago and Upper Big Branch. There are also ‘silent killers’ like the rise of black lung, and the increase of miners killed individually on the job. When a single miner dies on the job, it may get some coverage in local press, but then it is soon forgotten. As one union miner put it, “With Alpha’s motto ‘Running Right’, if you don’t have a union, they tell you when you’re running right. With the UMWA, you tell them when you’re running right.”
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Things in Blair have changed a lot also. After the Blair Mountain battle, people lived through the Depression, they went to war in Europe to fight the fascists, and they came back and settled into a town that during the 1950s was similar to many other American main streets. But slowly, like many other towns in West Virginia, the people who moved away outweighed the people moving in. Jobs were scarce, and a new route from Logan to Charleston that bypassed Blair was built, and businesses saw a decrease. Then in the late 1990s, the town underwent a huge transformation. A mining company planned to mine the ridges on one side of the town, and started buying out large portions of the town.
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The population in Blair has dropped from about 700 people to about 80 people today. Stores closed, schools were shut down, friends moved away, people sold and once they moved away they found out they got a lot less money than they thought they were getting. The people who stayed have had to deal with significant quality of life impacts such as drinking water laden with heavy metals and non-existent community infrastructure. Now there is a population that is statistically older, and that has already been through one very difficult ordeal with mountaintop removal.
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One of the MTR sites that threatens the Blair Mountain battlefield.
The Blair Mountain battlefield and the community are threatened again by mountaintop removal operations. There are five major MTR operations around the town and battlefield. The future of this town, and many other central Appalachian towns, is precarious.
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But the spirit of the organizers and strikers who fought at Blair Mountain in 1921 still remains in the community members of Blair. Blair Mountain Heritage Alliance works with these people to preserve Blair Mountain and build towards a better future in Blair and the surrounding areas.
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We operate the Blair Community Center and Museum, and have initiated a program to preserve and promote the history through heritage tourism. We work on many different issues, from labor to environmental. Our goal is to work in mutual solidarity with the community around us to break the oppression of coal companies and to work hard in obtaining a more just and prosperous central Appalachia.
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Part of this work is attempting to gain a deep understanding of the problems facing people here in southern West Virginia. Much of the issues that the miners fought against in 1921 remain, although they have transformed into new modes of oppression that are subtler and at times much more hidden. In our work we attempt to move past the simplified dichotomies that often characterize Appalachia and its problems. Looking around, it seems there is a void that exists when it comes to the very real concerns of coal extraction communities.
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Groups of students from Logan learning about their history.
We’re not saying we have all the answers, because there is still a lot of learning that needs to be done on our part. What we are saying is that by most forecasts, coal production is going to decrease. As cost goes up, more mechanization and automation will be used. People are going to be losing their jobs, people are losing their jobs, and they are rightfully tense, angry, and frustrated. They are rightfully worried about being able to continue to live in their community and to take care of their family.
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But this anxiety is manipulated and utilized by those in power to advance their own interests. Rather than politicians addressing some of the root problems, and coming up with real solutions, they instead use all their energy fighting against a ‘war on coal’. What we really need is a strong focus on building jobs and building small businesses. We need workshops and initiatives to help the people create local based economies. Instead of relying on one industry to supply our needs, we should become independent again. We need to create, invent, build, work hard, help each other in our communities, and use this transition to create a better future.
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There is not any black and white in the situation that communities across Appalachia are facing including Blair. We don’t want to see people lose jobs and we don’t want to see our mountains destroyed. We are forced into making this decision by dynamics that seem out of our control. When people ask the question, “What are we going to do without coal”, we need to have something real to point to, we need to have a real response that addresses the basic question of “how will I survive?” At the same time, people who have incredibly toxic drinking water and serious impairment to their quality of life because of mining have just as much of a right to ask how they will survive.
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We do not have to be forced to make the choice between health and jobs. From the organizing of the UMWA and countless community-based movements, Appalachians have for a long time shown that more options can be obtained. We want safe good paying jobs, we want a healthy environment, we want a good future for our kids, and more than that, we deserve these things.
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Because the truth remains that the politicians, the people in power, the Friends of Coal, they will not be around when the bottom falls out. The main players will be in Washington D.C., St. Louis, Virginia and elsewhere. The people left holding the bag will be the people of West Virginia.
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So, there is no easy answer. It is going to take decades and decades of hard work. It is going to take the risk of entrepreneurship, of self-sacrifice, of long days and long nights. It is going to take the combination of practical solutions and clever inventiveness. With this there comes risk and uncertainty, but there also comes a deeper freedom and independence. There comes a sense of accomplishment when we can say that we created something new, something better for future generations, and we did it together.
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Those are some of the things that we are working toward. We not only want to preserve Blair Mountain and stop the destruction of our mountains, but also to very seriously address the future of Appalachia.
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Organizers from Appalachia and India share ideas about common struggles.
We only have to look out our front door here in Blair to see that something new is possible. The miners that fought on the slopes of Blair Mountain eventually won the right to unionize. They had to go through many challenges, but they created a better future. People all over the world are doing the same, right now. A new world is certainly possible. But no one is going to create it for us; we have to do that for ourselves.
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If you would like to join in this struggle, and help preserve this important part of American history, as well as work to build a better future here in Blair, there are a number of ways you can help. Sign up for our mailing list by emailing us, follow us on twitter at BMHA @BlairHeritage, and on Facebook. Check out our webpage. If you want to get even more involved, please get ahold of us, email us, write us!! And of course, we can always use donations – money donated goes directly to our work in Blair and towards preserving Blair Mountain!!
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