a friend of mine makes alittle over $1100 every to weeks. which is about $400 less than me, so we were talking about it the other day and i told him i didn't miss it. i said i don't have to worry about the roof at work falling on me, well not yet anyways.
my whole family was union. people was shot and shot at all around here. a guy i work with grand paw was shot at a strike in late sixties. as of today there isn't one union job in the county. has anybody ever heard of BLOODY HARLAN. it was war, from a UMWA magazine i learned that the goverment dropped BOMBS, yes bombs from an airplane to break up a strike in west virginia.
"On August 24, the march began as approximately 5,000 men crossed Lens Creek Mountain. The miners wore red bandanas, which earned them the nickname, "red necks." In Logan County, Don Chafin mobilized an army of deputies, mine guards, store clerks, and state police. Meanwhile, after a request by Governor Morgan for federal troops, President Harding dispatched World War I hero Henry Bandholtz to Charleston to survey the situation. On the 26th, Bandholtz and the governor met with Keeney and Mooney and explained that if the march continued, the miners and UMWA leaders could be charged with treason. That afternoon, Keeney met a majority of the miners at a ballfield in Madison and instructed them to turn back. As a result, some of the miners ended their march. However, two factors led many to continue. First, special trains promised by Keeney to transport the miners back to Kanawha County were late in arriving. Second, the state police raided a group of miners at Sharples on the night of the 27th, killing two. In response, many miners began marching toward Sharples, just across the Logan County line.
The town of Logan was protected by a natural barrier, Blair Mountain, located south of Sharples. Chafin's forces, now under the command of Colonel William Eubank of the National Guard, took positions on the crest of Blair Mountain as the miners assembled in the town of Blair, near the bottom of the mountain. On the 28th, the marchers took their first prisoners, four Logan County deputies and the son of another deputy. On the evening of the 30th, Baptist minister John E. Wilburn organized a small armed company to support the miners. On the 31st, Wilburn's men shot and killed three of Chafin's deputies, including John Gore, the father of one of the men captured previously. During the skirmish, a deputy killed one of Wilburn's followers, Eli Kemp. Over the next three days, there was intense fighting as Eubank's troops brought in planes to drop bombs.
On September 1, President Harding finally sent federal troops from Fort Thomas, Kentucky. War hero Billy Mitchell led an air squadron from Langley Field near Washington, D.C. The squadron set up headquarters in a vacant field in the present Kanawha City section of Charleston. Several planes did not make it, crashing in such distant places as Nicholas County, Raleigh County, and southwestern Virginia, and military air power played no important part in the battle. On the 3rd, the first federal troops arrived at Jeffrey, Sharples, Blair, and Logan. Confronted with the possibility of fighting against U.S. troops, most of the miners surrendered. Some of the miners on Blair Mountain continued fighting until the 4th, at which time virtually all surrendered or returned to their homes. During the fighting, at least twelve miners and four men from Chafin's army were killed."
i found a story on the net about a explosion in a mine near my home similar to the sago mine accident. after the explosion a black miner who had been in a previous situation got everybody together sealed up a room and waited. they where rescued and taken to the hospital and place in a ward together, sometime after they got them cleaned up they found that one of the miners was black and tried to remove him to a different section of the hospital. (it was in the forties with segregation it was normal) well all of the white miners came out of their beds in protest all but one and he never regained conciousness.
"Pineville became well known across the nation on December 26, 1945, when an explosion in a coal mine at the Fourmile community left 20 men trapped inside. Heroic rescue attempts were followed by all the national radio and print media. Raging fires continued to prevent rescue of all the men trapped inside, and the mine was eventually permanently sealed. One local man, Bud Townes, was credited with saving the lives of nearly a dozen of his co-workers, as he brought them into a room in the mine and sealed the opening after leaving a message chalked onto a wall detailing their location. Townes rationed the food and water available and kept up the men's spirits with prayer and hymns. When the men were rescued and taken to the local hospital, medical personnel discovered Townes--beneath his coal dust--to be a black man and prepared to move him to the "colored ward." However, the men Townes had saved protested, and the hospital became "integrated."
my greatgrandpaw had black lung and a broken back from working in the mines. before he died he turned blue from the effects of the lung disease. and my pappaw lost a thumb to the mines. people have no idea how much blood and lives was lost in this country to make their electricity.
GOD BLESS OUR MINERS