welcome, everybody.

today we are talking the west mine wars.

this is for for our class. this is really the beginning of a of a new section after your midterm. so this is a point we're going to start today by looking at some some big picture concepts, concepts that we've talked about, maybe looking at some maps that we've already seen this semester. and are going to use those to kind of touch base throughout this lecture and, look at those concepts and get a better understanding of how these these two sections of the class connect with one another. so first, i know i've showed you these maps before, or at least some version of them might be a little a little more updated then the ones that i was showing at the beginning, the semester. but these are maps i use a lot, maps that i use plenty in in these classes. and i think that can tell us many stories. right? not just about the united states, but particularly for us, what's happening in in appalachia and the structural, systematic social issues as poverty rate, health effects that are often discussed and

talked about within the region. so if i if i ask you by looking at this, this man, this is a map of persistent poverty counties, persistent poverty mean that means that there is long poverty occurring right in these in these counties that are being measured. it's not just a one off. right. you are not finding that significant levels of, people are living in poverty in these counties just for one year. right. it's usually multiple years or it is multiple years in succession, which is why we call it persistent poverty. it kind of highlights this as a structural issue, not as some sort of outlier or interpersonal issue of that nature. so i'll begin this map actually touches on several things that we've that we've talked not just not just coal mining or the mine wars in that conversation, but some others. but what do you all what do you notice about this about this map? what would jump out to you. yes. yeah, there's a healthy portion in appalachia specifically which

portion? a portion of appalachia do we know of? west virginia, west virginia, southern west virginia, eastern. and some of these counties in south west virginia as well that is what we call appalachia, coal. right. so exactly. persistent poverty is heavily centered in those areas in within appalachia. what else do we notice? there's some other things that this map tells us as well that we can just touch on. yes, right here, a big proportion along mississippi river, big portion along the mississippi river, right. certainly, this is something that we've talked about when we the antebellum south. right. the black belt that you can see here, also the mississippi river valley. so this map is also demonstrating structural inequalities or structural poverty in areas historically align with plantation agriculture and the and the slave system in the united states. another map that i know shown you before, this is a map of excess mortality rates in really what we see is.

you can kind of lay this map directly over the one that we were just looking at with poverty as well. so again, we're kind of getting into understanding where these where these structures lie, where these social issues are. and once again, with excess mortality, this is i'll add one little caveat. this is it's a little dated it's based on 2010 census data or other data from 2010 in with the census and then some other studies, you know, throughout that covid really skewed some of the recent maps with this. so i have to lean on the older ones, but certainly newer maps would if you could somehow take that out of out of the picture, which we certainly can't, would kind of reflect in the in the same way again. right. the coal fields we see southern west virginia, eastern kentucky, southwestern virginia. and also again, there's some pretty heavy excess mortality occurring right along the mississippi river valley. and in some of those historical places. well, anybody else notice anything, too, you know, what's

up there in the in the top in the dakotas? any clue what that is. yes, with the indian reservation. yes. those would absolutely be indian reservations. right. so this is kind of another touchstone with class in looking at where these these issues lie. right. indian reservations, of course, being something that we didn't get to spend too much to discuss about when we talked about the trail of and indian removal policy and that process. but certainly there was lots of of system adic issues that have stemmed from from the the the ethnic of of native americans from the southeast. right. so with those we can really see. right, kind of a rounded take away from our first unit of the class where we talked about everything right from from indian removal to the antebellum south. the slaves the role that that played in appalachia also the rolls right that we see it having continuously the legacies of those of those systems and of

those atrocities as they took place. but now as we move into the 20th century, right. with this class and we're focusing on on coal country, we see that there is another right kind of long term structurally deficient, impoverished area that also has serious effects as well. and certainly if you start looking through the numbers of excess mortality, i mean, it's really quite incredible to think about the coal fields, right? you have multiple counties within within appalachian coalfields themselves. again, just being kind of that little that little tri state area of southern west virginia, eastern kentucky and southwest virginia being, you know, among the most impoverished in unhealthy places in the entire nation. right. here'so numbers breath it county, kentucky, has a life expectancy of 70 years old. that is the same as kazakhstan mcdowellouy, west virginia, icis going to be notable today in the conversation about the mine was 70.3 years. perry county, kentucky as well,

70.6 years old, which is the same as north korea. right. so we're health effects and excess mortality and life expectancy rates here that are you know, we wouldn't say are on par with what should exist in the wealthiest country in the world. instead, we are seeing extreme poverty. and today, i think in this discussion of the mind wars and and mining more generally we're going to get a understanding and a grounding as we move forward in this class. talking about coal mining, talking about resource extraction. right. but also right. some of the fights that took place to better those circumstances. right and why those long term conditions came out the way that they did so that we end up with. and it also lends itself conversations about stigmatization and stereotypes that we've been having about people from appalachia, about the region itself, often being blamed for what, you know, are more historical and structural problems, not, you know, interpersonal or cultural problems. so that's going to bring us to the to the next point here.

i do want to touch base with this really perhaps for the the audience to write, but one thing i'd like to do in classes and particularly talking to students is to talk about the way that scholarship and research has been done right on these this subject matter and on these topics in particular, early appalachia itself. so in the mid 20th century, in the 1960s, right, the lyndon b johnson administration is going to to try to undertake what they call the great the great society is an expansion of the new deal order that is specific actually what it is. it was creating federal agencies, passing federal legislation in order to target right. places that were that were dealing with poverty or that it dealt with racism. if you're talking about the rural south, it is really a target on those social issues. right? one of the big ones is the war on poverty and appalachia. right. because of its long term poverty and some of that systematic becomes a target of this federal legislation. you're familiar with this in

some way, right? the appalachian regional is created in this kind of flurry of of great society legislation in the sixties. so if you think about that map that we've kind of been using all year long, that really kind of goes from it's on county data, right? it goes from mississippi all the way up into the new york. right. some of it looks pretty far out. right. you know, places that you wouldn't consider to be appalachia. but certainly we have those areas that are considered to be more centrally located in appalachia. right. looking, you know, of course, these being the coal fields themselves. but when this is created, right, scholars researchers are brought in to help federal agencies. the appalachian regional commission understand right where these levels of poverty came from and how they could be fixed. unfortunate. in the 1960s, the dominant model all right. for this type of understanding was the culture of poverty model. that's what we call it now. it is very deficient, right. you all will be familiar with some of the ideas come out of it. it is based heavily those stigmatization and stereotypes

that we've seen occur like in the local color fiction writing movement that happened after the civil war continued into the 19, really into the 19 teens and twenties and thirties. right. you know, framing appalachia as this idea like kind of isolated landscape populated by these very peculiar and strange and and culturally backwards people in one way or another. so what we have with this with this this this model of of culture, of poverty. right. is saying that these people were, you know, the people that inhabited these counties that were struggling with poverty. right. were were were deficient, you know, in their culture, their families were deficient the way that they brought up their children were deficient. so it created these, you know, these social issues and it's shortsighted because it's certainly victim blaming. right. we we certainly understand that. but it doesn't really give us a good understanding right about how things like poverty and excess mortality really come about. right. the actual long term

consequences is right, not just to the things, you know, like, like culture, interpersonal decisions. of course, people can make bad decisions, right. but the way that the land itself the people that live there have been systematic exploited. right. many in appalachia a certainly there's been a trend of dispossession, people being removed off their land right from their home places. we've seen the role of land of absentee landholders. right. or absentee landlords land speculators. and now into the 20th century particularly this growth of king coal and resource extraction industries. right. so this was was deficient in a of ways it it it really was a mixed bag the way that the appalachian regional commission was able to distribute some of this money a lot of the money, the federal money that would go to help poverty would would not to the places most in need they would go to more urban or metropolitan areas would go to townships, places that some sort of, you know, community safety net, perhaps, but that wasn't dealing with the struggle of

poverty as we would see right. and those in those rural coalfields that had historically linked right to the coal mining industry and the company, which we will discuss that they that they inhabited. so certainly this is something that we've that we've kind of touched on from now. but by the 1980s, we see a different of model emerging with the failures of of this great society order in the 1980s, appalachian studies scholars get together, they come up with a new a new model, not new on its own. they're really kind of borrowing right from another model itself, internal. it is specifically different than this classical colonization. you know, if you're thinking in classical colonialism, then were thinking, right, european empires coming across the sea, landing, exploiting, removing genocide and enslaving. right. you know, the the indigenous population of those places and creating systems that extract right and plunder wealth, you know, from those places, those

people. that's how we think about classical colonialism. but internal colonization is specifically right. so it is kind of a jargony, but but short definition that i'll, i'll say out loud just to get it out there before kind of fleshing this out a little further. internal colonialism or internal colonization, an internal colony is a sub society, structurally alien aided and lacking resources because of processes of the total political system. internal colonization. and certainly, you know something, these scholars in the eighties are to, you know, borrow pretty heavily from and looking at this theory or at this model for for understanding poverty is looking at the jim crow south. that is probably the quintessential, you know example an internal colony or internal colonized nation in the united states. if you look the jim crow south, what you see is that you have one a sub society, right. of a population. we're not seeing know these european empires coming over you

know and ants you know imposing themselves on indigenous populations that that live in these new places. it's happening within the state within society itself. so we have a subset i.t group. right. and what happens and perhaps it'll help you understand, you know, if we, if we talk about jim crow as internal colonization a little better, right. what you see is, you know, with reconstruction as we as we discussed. right. there's there's widespread violence, there's widespread intimidation of black voters across states of black of of black freedom more generally and eventually. right. that widespread violence is going to start restricting their ability to hold office, their ability to vote. and once you have a white majority or at least enough of a white majority, those will all start getting codified. call those the jim crow laws. it's disenfranchize segment taking the vote away from people. it is segregation, right? you know, regulating where people can go and society where they can, where they can eat, where they can dine, water

fountains they can drink from who they can marry, where they can travel. right. there's certainly also the ever present threat of of mob violence that is there as well. but once that's codified, you have a legal system, you have law enforcement all working to kind of create a new system for a sub society of american society, in this case, black americans living in southern jim crow states. right. that that really just kind of renders them a secondary citizen. so to be entirely colonized means that they are not getting their full right, you know, or the full abundance of american american rights they are instead rendered to the second class. they are exploited. all right. often considered sgmatized themselves as being as being deficient and kept within. right. this this kind of idea of an internal colony. so what scholars do is they borrow from that in appalachia and, you know, rather than seeing that there are and certainly will, we'll get into to some of the ways that the company towns were regulated in a minute you know but what you see is actually the combination

of a legal system and the economic system itself. right. particularly big resource extraction industries, wealthy right organization, those that could come in, they defrauded people. their money, they they bought land from people. they also exploited them. right, for their for their so called mineral rights, which was this idea. right. that that the companies themselves could purchase the rights to coal that existed beneath surface, even if someone who lived in appalachia. right, a native appalachian, maybe that they've lived on this subsistence farm for for three generations or even longer. they're right. they have the property rights, but that is the mineral rights, right. so the companies themselves would claim that they had a right to the minerals, they could be extracted and you are even remotely familiar with how coal mining works. you know, you have to go down through the top, right? so it would destroy their their property. they would often be displaced, right. talked about this kind of unique way of life in appalachia already, the way that mountains were used as grazing pastures. they were used for foraging for

for timberlands. right. for recreation. nobody had a proper legal claim to these spaces. right. so it also made it easy for those resource extraction companies, particularly big companies, able to swoop in and kind of, you know, gather those things up as. they're doing this. people were displaced, right there, losing their way of life. they don't have access to the resources that they had previously. so generally what we're seeing is that we have people that can't make any ends meet like they once did, people that may not have a place to go. they're displaced. their land or their land has been destroyed. so what options does that leave them? where do they go? what happens to those people? you know, people would their land i mean there there's there's this kind of trick, right. you know, bring the lawyers down. they would offering some money for, their homesteads and it would be just enough right. you know, there would be some kind of connection. there. maybe it wasn't like, you know, there's not enough money to. really take something, you know, to buy something that's been in your in your family for

generations or maybe you raised your kids there or something. but at a point, you get so much money right? you would be pretty much an idiot for not taking it right or you would feel like one. so people sold out. they often sold out for for cheaper than they should from not understanding. or sometimes they did make a profit, but they weren't really looking to leave anyway. so some of those people absent they would take jobs with with the mining companies themselves. the other option was that. what else could you do, charlotte? i guess you could you put down the really difficult just because like your whole home and family and community communities and also just your whole life, you know. yeah, i mean, you do have to pick up and and if you make that decision to leave, you have to pick up leave your community leave your family, maybe leave general or a generational home behind. that's absolutely true. but this is also something that is going to the problem that we're talking about there. significant outmigration of appalachia that is occurring

certainly as you know, these these resource extraction companies are coming in. they're leaving, they're taking jobs in in in chicago, in dayton, ohio, in cincinnati. other other, you know, urban places that are that are growing themselves, that are industrializing. right. they're going to look and they're not going to come back. they're going to take their human capital, their labor capital, them. right. they're going to take their future families with them. and certainly this is going to an even bigger drain long on appalachia itself. so we're thinking those persistent poverty counties. i think that's important caveat to kind of put in here before we before we proceed. but there's lots of long term ramifications. this i think i'm going to save those for the end. that way we can kind of jump talking about company town specific lee right. and then kind of reference back to this idea of internal colonization and this model. i will say very briefly, internal colonization is a model. there's many models of appalachian development that we that we can talk about.

they're still more like regional development models. people today often refer appalachia as a national sacrifice, right? you have the culture, poverty, internal colonization. they're all so they're just kind of things, right, to hang our on, to give us a better understanding by the 1980s, right. when when we really start seeing company towns being studied and there, being a seriousness about understanding appalachian poverty and declining health in appalachia as well in colonization, you know, makes up for one of the better models for that. it puts it in historical perspective. and it also makes it right. it helps us to understand these these these these structural problems. right. with their with their origins. right. rather than just of blaming appalachian people. right. in their culture themselves. it is certainly a step in the right direction. but very quickly, it is not perfect. it does create this of us against them, kind of outsider dynamic. that's not exactly perfect. certainly, we know that people

in appalachia did caught right the railroads resource extraction companies as well some people were proponents of it. right but internal colonization is something i think that can make sense of this for it. so we can reference back to this as we progress talking about company towns and the mind wars itself. i think in looking at company towns, it's probably best to start with some images and some maps right just to kind of orient ourself. you this map is a large one. the red. what's important here, the blue was actually permitted from about a decade ago, i believe. right. but the red are places that have been mined. so you can see southern west virginia even going into west virginia, a little bit up toward up towards the north. right. there's plenty of these of these communities here that are going to be historically right home to these two. these company towns. and you can see them right on these map. this is a fantastic project that has been done to collect you know, some of these maps of where company towns or coal camp towns existed.

this is the primary county that we're going to be talking today, may one, right. an incorporated town is right here. we will see that. and up here, you see the little red dot. that's the stone mountain corporation mining camp. that is the primary corporation that we're going to talk about today. but right from these maps, what you can see, there's tons these little company towns all around here. right. you have the ones that are circled are ones that are proper towns. those are incorporated. that means there are municipalities right. they have you know, there's voting. there's elected officials right there could be a mayor. there's formal law and and policies. right. and and laws on those towns, company towns are distinctly different than that. these aren't proper municipalities. they are privately owned. everything about them is privately aren't right. so that is the the important takeaway for us in in looking at this, we're going to see some pictures and we're going to try to flesh out what that means and the problems that can absolutely come. from that. right. but there's no democratic system. right. that should be the first thing that we that we look to understand here. you know, there's like i said,

there's no elections. there's really nowhere that you can turn right if you some kind of grievance within your community. right. for any type of resource is owned literally. right by the company, by your employers, by this case, right. the stone mountain corporation. we'll look at a couple more maps of these really quickly. this is another important one for us today, too. this is the the logan county coalfield. again, we see some bigger towns with the circles around them. logan being the county seat that we see surrounded by tons right. those little company towns or those coal camps. you can also see, again, as we've as we've really talked about since we were covering the 1850s, the growth of the railroads, certainly a lot of these outposts, civil war, civil war doings, but a lot of this growth in the southern west virginia coalfields is going to happen with the expansion of the railroads themselves opening up new markets. right. you know, for resources coming out of coming out of these these areas, there's quite a bit of growth happening in the 19 tens

in the 1920s, particularly in these counties, there is really a massive boom right in the in the coal industry and employment it within the coal industry and the demand, particularly in the united states as it was industrializing, urbanizing, you know, is is certainly driving this this expansion of these of these company towns. here is another one. you can see i believe. yeah charleston, the the capital, west virginia, up with the four circles. looks like a bull's on the on the canal river and. then just the the incredible amount of company towns and coal camps that stem from that. and, you know, just kind of briefly. mcdow county, another one will mention as well, one of the poorest counties in the entire country and greenbrier county in the greenbrier coalfields as as well. so that's kind of a lay of the land, right, that we're with these company towns and for the mine workers themselves. but let's discuss who worked in

these mines. right? so who worked in the mines. well, first of all, i think the most obvious are native born appalachians, those very people. right, that you all just mentioned that were taking from where they were to work in those mines that had been there, perhaps for generations, you know, but had been there at least for for their lives. another second group that is very important to this are eastern and southern european immigrants. this is not something that is unique to the coalfields. emigration was booming across the country, particularly in urban areas. but the railroads in the in the coal industry also pretty heavily from from immigrants that were that were looking for work. and this is also post-world war one, certainly a lot of destruction in europe. a lot of people leaving. and these are a new breed of immigrants, the so-called new immigrants, right to to the united states. around the turn of the 20th century, from different areas, not western europe, but southern eastern, which was slightly and also would contribute to of the

some of the harsh prejudice right in the nativism that surrounded immigration in the in the 1920s. it's certainly a particularly tense time around that. and speaking of that, of course, right. the third group, african-americans, were very prominent members of of coal mining communities holding, jobs in local unions, even holding higher positions in the united mine workers of america which is one of the big which is kind of the large overarching union that the unionization movement is is going to try to to expand right across these coal fields that we just saw on on those maps for african-americans this can be an opportunity for many of them they were they were particular early looked to by by coal employers coal operators because. there was a large number of black southerners who were looking to escape the violence and the segregation. and in the harsh racism of, the jim crow system that was expanding itself and tightening its restraints and growing in violence really, even still from

the 19 tens and 1920s, you know, mob violence, lynching is still a problem. klan activity that increases in the 1920s and the the codification of the jim crow system to is kind of spreading itself across state so people are fleeing they are fleeing looking for better lives and looking to escape as part of the great migration, which is a broader movement of african-americans out of the south. and really this giant demographic shift in the united states. a good many of those people were recruited to go to the coal fields, work in the mines themselves. and i do want to take a few, you know, to discuss this right. know, we we kind of have this this big toxic soup of of social political forces. right. there's a lot of nativist. there's a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment. right. you also have, you know, the jim crow system and the negative stigmatization and the harsh, harsh racism that experienced.

so where is this going to be experienced, these new places? yes, of course it would right there absolutely is conflict between these groups, groups of white native born appalachians, african-americans coming from the south. and it wasn't just from the south. that was really just the predominant movement and this demographic shift that was taking place. but also those new immigrants that were coming, you know from from places like italy. right. to take positions in these or to take jobs in the mines themselves, in the towns. right. this tension could be exploited. so whenever we start looking at company towns do understand right. that often one of the tactics that coal employers would use, coal operators would use was to segregate the company towns themselves. all of those little dots, you would have one little section in that town over that was for native born appalachian. you would have a section over here right, for black miners. you have a section over here for four immigrant miners from from southern europe, from italy, from wherever. right. and kind of doing this right. it was a means right for the for the coal operators to, you know,

for lack of a better phrase, divide and conquer. right. if if your goal is to unionize, they could drive wedges between those groups by segregating them, often relying right on on on jim crow laws themselves and just copying them. right. and putting them into into the coal camps themselves. they would privilege right, you know, white workers with with better pay with promotions potentially if they were if they were loyal enough with management positions. right. you know, you're you're creating or what they were creating. right. was this resentment between those groups to kind of fracture? certainly the you know, the the solidarity and the cooperation that would be needed. right. to to organize and to create a union in these places. so race and labor. right. these are interesting places at really the dawn the 1920s. here they are places where that tension is very real. right. i don't want to give the impression that these were you

know that that that the unions were were racial paradise. they absolutely were not certainly that racism and that prejudice carried itself that but certainly because it existed it could be exploited right by itself and by their by their employers. right. if you're a white native born miner right, you can get a raise. maybe you're willing to take that right, you know, at the expense of of your of your immigrant or coworkers. right. so kind of breeding this resentment and, it's really a way break down. you know, once that that cooperation. but is there a level of solidarity that starts forming? absolutely. there is. certainly, as we talked as the union spread, the united mine workers of america are able to recruit these people into the mines. and what we see as as you know, we start seeing the the the unions spread across southern southern west virginia coalfields you know, is that leadership positions. right. are being filled by, you know, black workers.

it's really kind of a precursor, you know, to some of this activism that you're going see later in the century in the labor movements and the civil rights movements of the 1940s, fifties and sixties. right. so there there is a continuity to history here. so really quickly, let's also kind of shift over to the company town itself, where these people lived, what they were they were encountering right company were were not new ideas in the 1920s. they had been around for a while. again, this is kind of a national movement to build company towns, very famous ones in chicago i have a pullman advertisement up here because i think it does a really good job to kind of this drive this point home. right. you know, certainly big business capitalist up with these ideas that they would create company towns, that they would give people the opportunity to live. right. a middle class lifestyle right within those towns right next to the places where they. right, you know, for pullman, that was building rail cars in chicago. you know if you if you know anything about the 8090s or us

history, you know there's going to be a big there's going to be a big protest really a locked down the pullman plant because right a lot of you know not just the working conditions within the plants itself, but also the exploitation that they were that they were facing in the company towns and why were they they facing exploitation there? well, really, what these were where were of social control. there is a documentary a pbs documentary about company towns in the mine was and i like this phrase so i copied it they call it the it's instruction grounds for exploitation. so what these company towns do is they provide models right for employers, bosses and not just what they can do but what they can get away with. are they going to be allowed right, you know, to to treat their workers right by, you know, in certain ways by controlling right. you know, their their lived environments, what they have access to and how they're paid, right. where they live and really who those towns in and of

themselves. so this is something is prominent in in appalachia. we'll see some images here they are they certainly have these cookie cutter looking houses, places like pullman in chicago would have would have really been looking to be more kind of middle class they would have been multistory building some of the the homes in appalachia and coal camps were were certainly not up that standard there's fantastic picture here you can kind of see i believe this is in omaha west virginia. this is right on payday people going to to receive their receive their money in town. you can see the various and the diversity rate of people that are here in this coal camp. right. here's some more images as well. these are older homes are that have been boarded up at the time that this picture was taken. but, you know, you kind of get the the idea of what these homes looked like. here's another one looking at a at a company town and the company the company store also being a critical point of of tension with in company towns themselves. does anybody why anybody care to

explain or have an idea of why? yes, very bad. i believe you said it was common. they didn't actually pay with actual currency. they use a company currency, kind of a fake money they could only spend in the company town at their source. yeah, right. so they there was company money, right. in this case it was, you know, stone mountain stole stone mountain corp or asian company money or otherwise, you know, by the popular name scrip sca or ip, what scrip is is know essentially it is money that the companies printed themselves is what they paid their workers in and it's what their workers then in turn used to purchase things them even pay their rent and pay their mortgages right in this company scrip, it was scrip being that it's company money that it can't be used elsewhere. right. you can't take that money and go over to to the next town or go to charleston, west and pay right in stone mountain dollars. you can't do that right.

there were some examples or some where you could trade them. you could exchange at a bank, but you had to take a pretty massive cut like 25% or 50%. you're taking a huge cut to change that to usd. so most didn't do it. instead they would shop at these company stores. the company store sold everything that they needed right? sold hardware. they sold clothing, they sold food, they sold furniture. they even sold things you needed for the job, right? they sold black powder and dynamite. they sold tools. know anything, really, that you think that you need to survive and to maintain your house and to your job was purchased there right. using company money so. what is kind of the obvious thing about using company money? right to purchase everything you need and it being required even some company towns and some companies have policies, you know, about finding people if they if they found out they were shopping at other stores. right. maybe they did exchange their currency. so whenever i'm talking about social control really what this strategy was pretty pretty

explicitly but i mean, what's that doing right. you know, just kind of on a on a on a general, right. you know, if you're if you create own your own currency, you pay workers in it and then they pay you back for all the stuff that they need. right. you are you are making it so that you keep more write real u.s. dollars in pocket. right. so it's one way for the company to really kind of take back of their operating and industrial costs and the cost of labor that they're spending. right. certainly some of these workers could could could angle for a if they if they got a raise write off in the rent or the mortgage rates or you the prices in the company stores would go up as as well would raise them so really you're kind of right back where you were these were places that were huge targets of activism, right. when we see the mind wars and just a second right people were shooting at the company stores. right. they were big targets because it was one of the primary places where people were exploited. their centers of these company towns. and they're also centers right

where people experience the things right that the company towns had to offer. right. can see some more images here of what these what these look like. i mean, they're they're far from utopias, right. you know, but by any by any stretch of the imagination, here is some some images really quickly, of of just the miners. and you know what it looks like kind of under underground. right. but what the company store what these miners understood. right. i mean they they certainly that they are the ones right. that under the ground taking this coal out. right. they are stripping it out of their they are putting their bodies on the line. and certainly their bodies were on the line. i mean, you coal miners today, there's you know, often this there's this interview with a miner, that man, this was it was probably published in the mid 2000 tens like 20 1516 i believe this guy's name was like kenny, right? he was 46 years old, had only worked in the mining industry for for 12 years. right. complete belly destabilized, disabled. right. because of black lung. this this wretched, excruciating

disease that comes from from coal mining, right. if you don't know what it is, right. it turns your it turns your your your lungs basically into into rocks. i think, kenny, whenever went and was diagnosed, was carrying 30 pounds of fluid. right around his around his lungs. the portions of his you know, his lungs that were really kind of calcifying inside of him, you know, coughing up, you know, what essentially looks like sludge. and it's it's horrific. you know, he would you know, in the interview, he talks about how he sleeps single night in a recliner because the only way to breathe and sleep. right. he couldn't do much of anything. black lung is certainly something that is a huge risk factor for these miners. know the miners know that they are taking on those risks. they're taking on the risks of of an explosion of, a mining accident, where a boulder falls and, crushes someone or maims a family member. right. there is also child was very common. i mean, this is pre-new there's no minimum wage or paid scrip there's no there's no there's no

limit to your working hours. people are working 16, 18 hours a day. some people aren't even out from the mines right. to go to sleep. they would sleep on cots in the mines they would wake up, go straight back to work, sometimes three or four days in a row without being above ground. it's really incredible, right, to think of the sacrifice, right. that it takes to work in that situation and then right to be paid. and what is essentially monopoly money and to go a store where you're just handing all that money back to people that don't even live really in the in the communities themselves. i'll like the coal itself. it's the wealth that was created was going to the companies whose and owners typically lived, you know, in the northeast or in chicago and other places such such as that. so lot of that wealth is leaving. they're being paid write in scrip, which also makes it impossible to save money. right. the united states, the primary way to build wealth is or intergenerational wealth, right? that's the way that you typically become wealthy here. right. that's impossible for people. they're not paid in real u.s. dollars.

no way to save. right. so their future, their autonomy, the companies and scrip itself. right. that comes right of this oppression, this inability right to control their own autonomy, right to to provide for their families and to create some form of of and something to give right to their to their children, to their children's children and children. children's children and so on. right. you know, this is this is something that certainly hit them on a on a level of not just being paid poor wages. right. we see it hits them on a level of it's it's about personal freedom. right. it's about the freedom for your families. that's about, you know, the democratic system and the rights that are provided to people, the united states, and the opportunities. right. that we're supposed to have people that worked in these company towns. right. or in these camps, did not have those opportunities. right. so we start seeing right, you know, what is going to lead to the level of violence that we're that we're about to get to. and certainly no accident here. right. persistent poverty. i'm talking about how. you can't build intergenerational wealth

instead. right. you're creating energy poverty. right. these counties, the coalfields have looked like that for generations. right. so we can again, going back to the culture of poverty model, just blaming the on on on the coalfields and saying that's why they were poor. i mean, what does that mean? i mean, people were so it was a diverse place, right. so what would that culture even even look like? right. but reality is, if we look at it instead through this lens of internal, we see how people are exploited, we see how they become a second tier or get a second tier status, a and don't have the opportunity and rights that are afforded right to the rest of the country. and again, the results kind play out on this map, which is why i show it so often. and i started it and i am referring back to it here. another means of this can also look to striker demands. i'm not going to focus much on the the pain in cabin creek incidents. instead i am just going use what they what their striker is.

this actually happens about a decade before the the events of mate want to blair mountain which is what we're going to focus on right but if you if you start looking at the list of of striker demands at payton cabin creek which is around charleston, west virginia, it's one of those company towns down in there. they pretty much go on on strike at the exact time and the demands really speak. right. you know, not just a warning raises, but right to the actual oppression, exploitation that they're that they're suffering, that lack of opportunity, that lack of rights, that second tier citizenship. right. that they or second tier life that they are are granted. right. or, you know, forced into those in those inhose coal camps. right. so they want the right to organize. they want to collectively bargain. that's the biggest one. rit. that was certainly a goal labor for a century at this point. right. inhe united states to be able to band together to collectively bargain against your employers. right. they were often targeted called bolsheviks and socialist and communist. right. and things like that,

particularly at this time. right. it's after 1917. it's after the russian revolution. right. so there's lots of fear mongering with with organizing that is taking place. right certainly that same kind of logic isn't applied to the trade groups. right you know, that the coal companies were allowed to form and kind of collectively bargain for themselves, but it is targeted at the at the at the miners unions. right. they want a recognition, the constitutional rights. right. you know, one thing about these company towns in that they owned everything. right. it just company stores and paying people in secret also owned you know they own the newspapers. right if there is a a labor strike in birmingham, alabama somewhere or something like that. right. you know, your your company town is not going to cover that. you are not going to receive that news. so there's going to be some certainly some censorship issues, right. that are happening. absolutely understoodhaas as well an end to black union organizers. it was pretty common know in one of these counties that we're

going to look at logan county, the logan counties, sheriff's department departments, police deputies. you know, we're known for jumping in and beating suspect the union organizers. right. you know, not that doesn't even mean that they really were. but beating to death. right. you know, just for for entering the county that is how often violent. right. these labor disputes could get, even just with the threat of unnization. and they wanted alternatives. the stores and the of of using mine guards. more oth in just a little bit. a prohibition of cribbing, which is really a way of exploiting your worke bloading them up with more than you're willing to pay. you put quotas on them, but you make the, you know, the rail carts bigger and then refusto refuse to pay them right above their their quotas right and en several kind of checks and balances here. right. to make sure that the mine operators, employees or the people that e're sending down ght to be the check way men are to serve as mine guards. right. are being accountlealanced with some kind of some kind of

worker organized. you know check women as well. you know, they understand that they're not being that they're not being cheated. there's very little federal oversight here. part of that is because i mean, these coal operators they could one right they could purchase they could buy off certainly local politicians state politicians even law enforcement officers. that was pretty common, as we'll see in just a second. but also i think, you know, appalachia, the stigmatized nation of appalachia, was certainly playing a factor into this. you know, people just kind of saw of the violence or some of the poor conditions of these coal camps in the federal government would. just be like you and i, you know, these poor hillbillies, right? you know, they're, you know, have this deficient culture, right? that of culture of poverty thing or the of poverty that is creating these problems. right. the violence is their fault. it's just kind of to them. right. so you you have people kind of turning a blind eye to this kind of rampant exploitation and that is that is taking place. the other ingredient here is the

mind guard system, the one i just mentioned, the mind guard system. this is, again, not something that is unique to appalachia, right. mind guards or private detectives, detective agencies or private police forces where we're hired by robber barons, industrial capitalists all over the country. you know, they you know, probably maybe by way of example, one that you might have heard of or the pinkerton is right. so think of in in right the pinkertons were a private detective agency they were were hired by andrew carnegie right in the carnegie steel mills to infiltrate the unions that were there or that were trying to form. right. certainly there could be violence. they would intimidate union leaders and union organizer was trying to keep them out. but really what they did is serve the muscle. right, for for carnegie and his managers. but in appalachia, in the south west virginia coalfields, the big one was baldwin fells, the baldwin felts detective agency. they were run and operated by a man named felts and his and his

family. they were hired by the coal companies who also then with those local politicians, mine guards themselves and law enforcement. right. so you kind of have this kind of pseudo law enforcement that includes, again, these these private police forces. but again, they are not beholden a state. right. or to a government they are their own entity and they are being right by the mining companies themselves. certainly this can bleed. you know, i think you can understand how all of this can start going south pretty quickly. but with the mine guard system, this is something that that miners certainly hated it was it was something i mean they were constantly right if they tried to unionize or even if fell out of the graces with their employers. right. they were at constant threat of eviction. people who would carry out those evictions. right. literally going to their homes and their company owned things. right. they purchased in the store out into the streets. right. baldwin felts was the agency that provided did that kind of muscle and that kind of

enforcement rank for for the the coal companies themselves, all right. so that's kind of an overview of the ingredients, i think, of the problems that were happening. so now let's look at the problems with company towns. so let's look at some specific and we will begin not at peyton creek. we'll look at about a decade later at what will be called the battle. of mate one. now, mate one is a town. it's an incorporated town in southern west virginia. and there was the the stone mountain coal camp located nearby. but because they were nearby, lots of people communed, certainly right in these in these towns. and certainly mate one it had a government system, it had a his name was cable testerman and then the police chief said hatfield, which of course of those hatfields that we have talked about. he was, you know, he wasn't on the same family tree branch as devil ants. hatfield, i think his i think their grandfathers were brothers, right? but they are still on the same

tree. so we have sid hatfield. he was miner. he was a miner earlier in his life he was a union member, i believe at one point. and i think as the police chief, he also saw siding the miners was good long term. right, for his own personal his own personal career. so him and the you know so as would see baldwin's felts kind of operating right coming through this town to to evict and to really kind of shake down some of these miners that were working in this unionization effort. certainly the mayor and sid hatfield, exception to that. hatfield himself is going to confront with the mayor. right. to of those those agents on, may 19th, 1920. now what happens on may 19th is the baldwin felts agents come from bluefield. they hop on a train, they ride out to make one and they they are they are evicting people kind of on the outskirts of of may one and in the coal camps. right. they are literally throwing their stuff out in the road. people getting beat up.

right. there is some violence there's also some stories that are spreading very wildly, right. as this is happening. you know, it it was also just kind of a coincidence, right, the day that they actually plans. right. to do these shakedowns and these evictions it was the the united mine workers, the the union right was in town. there were thousands more people the town of eight wanted there than there normally would have been. right. bringing in secondary pay and resources. right. you know, food and stuff like for for the miners. so they were doing these drives at the exact same time. this is already happening, these pro-union drives or pro miner drives, i should say. right. so word really kind of start spreading through the town. right. know whether it's or not. they're hearing stories about pregnant women just being tossed out the door right know, people being stripped of the clothes on their that they purchased the company store. right you know just being served eviction notices from the from the companies themselves and it really riles everybody up right. you know so after this after the job is done, after people have evicted, after the felts agents

had had done this, they come back, they're eating at a restaurant and they're waiting on the next train to take them back to bluefield when they enter the town. sid hatfield cable testerman right, confront them. what they don't know or what the felts agents don't know is that testerman and hatfield had deputized and armed numerous miners stationed them right throughout the town of some of them are in buildings are around them. they were on second story buildings. there's a very movie that dramatizes the the the events of may one we're going to watch it ourselves but it's called just may one. it came out in 1987, directed by john sayles, fantastic movie. this is a a still from that you know kind of dramatized meeting right that took place between testerman hatfield and. it was actually tommy and i think his name, lee felts. they were not the people who ran baldwin's house, but they were in the felt's family. so they were also kind of like directors or higher ups, you know, some of leadership position, right, within baldwin sales agency. and there's there's quite a bit

of that exists for a couple of minutes between there's threats there's there's you know, lots of the lots of chest thumping right know i think at one point, you know, they both like sid hatfield and the felt's agents to arrest each other, right. you know, that was going on. but eventually we don't know who fired, but a gunshot rings out when the gunshot out hell breaks loose. there are, you know, bullets start flying, flying everywhere. sid hatfield shoots both of the felt brothers, tommy and tommy lee, killing them right at point blank range there. bullets off the off the buildings right. this went on for for several minutes. you know, not too long, but 3 to 5 minutes of fighting, people firing from from buildings, towns. you know, john sayles really plays that like the western dynamic up of this in the in the movie but that is kind of what it looks like when the when the dust settles right. ten people are dead.

the two most important being the two felts brothers, you know, very, very quickly, kind of diminishing the the leadership of the baldwin agency. you know, that was, you know, hatfield doing that five other, i believe. it was five other felts agents were killed cable testerman also took fatal gunshot to the stomach. he was still alive at the end the passes away because of his later and two miners also perished in shootout. so while this isn't a technical beginning of the mind wars, it is one of the primary first kind of outbursts of of major violence, said hatfield himself. right. he he's a hero after this. the way, you know, for the miners and because of all of the the oppression and and and terrible tension that they had with the baldwin felts agents and their, you know, in those in those mining camps. right. hatfield, you know, is is

retribution. right. he's something, you know, that appeals them as something who as someone who stood up to right those powers those powers of oppression and and gave something right to fight for certainly some of the miners took part in that fight as well. right. the other result of this is that, you know, not does hatfield become a hero, right. he's a figurehead kind of in this movement. right. but it really kind of electrified the unionization movement in the southern west virginia coalfields, 95%. right. of the miners, mingo county join the union. that is an enormous amount you know it kind of previously unheard of you know at that point particularly the mining industry to do that and they start setting their setting their sights on other places right. they're going to go over to mcdowell county, they're going to go to logan county. both of those counties were known to be very difficult. they were tough places, right. because of the sheriffs in those two counties deeply in the pockets. right. of of king. they were they frequently worked with the baldwin felts agents. you know, tom felts himself had,

you know, kind of along with those shares, the counties kind of kept like an iron grip and controlled. right. the southern coal fields themselves. right. so there's a lot of money in it for the baldwin felts agency. right, as well. and certainly quite a bit of quite a bit of power. what these what these miners do in the wake of may one is they set their sights on those places. they know they're going to be difficult. right? certainly they are going to be. right. but now people that are dead, sid hatfield shot people at point blank range dead, two higher ups in the in the bow and felts organized and obviously tom felts is angry and incensed. right. and the mine bosses themselves are going to have a response. it's a very interesting response. if it is one that i think we should we should definitely focus on here, because of the way that we've talked about the stigmatization right of appalachia and appalachia and migrants is really what they do. and they actually call this the america plan. it was a real plan. right. is it's a propaganda plant. the main bosses, you know, they they start saying that the miners themselves.

right. you know, actually, i think the new yorkimuns this it runs this headline it says that primitive mountaineers of appalachia lived by the sword and died by the sword. certainly primitive. they call them uncivilized. right. they said that the violence was barbaric. this is all the language that we've seen so far that has been used to describe these appalachian residents, whether it's in the local court fiction writing movement or those articles from the chicago tribune that we talked about where they were. they were, you know, talking this uncivilized jungle tactics, right. of of out migrants from, you know, from appalachia. so they lean on those stereotypes, right. they also start comparing right because of the russian revolution. right. some earlier start comparing the union efforts of the union drive to bolsheviks. right. you know, some people and this propaganda campaign, it gets it gets eaten up. people like it, right? it's influential and with powerful people in the press, with powerful people in politics. right. and it works.

i mean, you know, at one point, i think a politician actually says, you know, in in discussing with president harding at the time that that that may want the may one battle or the may one massacre was evidence that the states was on the cusp right of a bolshevik revolution of its own. that's silly, right? that's not going to happen. but i mean, those are the ideas, right. that are being pushed under this, you know, this america plan, right. by the by the by the mine. but by the mine bosses themselves. right. and it's going across the country. it's going to people right. who have certainly these these priors about people from appalachia, of them as violent hillbillies. you and and eating up those stereotypes that we've talked about for so long are saying that culture. right is deficient, that they have this violent culture. right. they're prone to to bolshevism and and communism. right. and certainly i think we know that this is a a tactic that's not unfamiliar to us. you still hear calls like that

even today when it comes to unionization efforts or union drives, really any kind of, you know, government probe, pro-labor, government policy, you'll still kind of hear those things come out, but it works right. it turns public sentiment against the miners right before the miners themselves. they are on a mission, right? there is a growing solidarity and cooperation right after the the the events of may one. they are pushing through to those other counties. they're holding these huge rallies. 5000 miners. right. going to charleston west virginia. i mean, you have big labor leaders that are there like mother jones, you know, kind of the famed co-creator of the international workers of the world is there. and she's saying that, you know, there is a brighter future on the horizon. a new day right is coming right. and, you know, but they're certainly being resisted at this

time. but certainly the enthusiasm is there that is going to to spur this into an even more large scale of violence is going to be the death of sid hatfield. right. so sid hatfield is put on on trial initially for the murder of one of the the feltz brothers. he is acquitted in the courtroom is there's big cheering on one side from the miners side right. and then there's boos and there's hisses from the other side is the pro felt side? certainly the felt was using some of that, you know, propaganda into that they were pushing or the coal bosses were pushing. right. you know, on the stand and certainly in the courtroom to try to smear sid hatfield right. but after this. right. sid hatfield goes to another series. right. of of of trials. and when he is going to mcdowell county. he's escorted over there by a mcdowell county deputy. he's up to the steps of a courthouse and right there is baldwins felt's agents at the top of the steps. someone they actually shoot one of his compatriots that was with him actually like reach across the man's wife and shoot guy in

the neck. and then there's bullets that shoot around everywhere. right. sid hatfield ends up dying. he's riddled with bullets. right one miner that was actually there and witnessed it said he was shot down like a dog right in the streets. this was in august of 1921, august first, right? hatfields deaf, right is going to have an enormous impact right on the mine themselves or on this unionization effort. and, you know, the push, right. that is ultimately going to spill over into to the battle of blair mountain. there's lots of right for miners. you know, they didn't know like if hatfield's death was was warranted had killed some people. there were also some rumors swirling. right. you know, hatfield had actually married mayor testament's wife two weeks after he was killed. right. some people said it was a promise to make or testament. but the felt's agents, the mine bosses, right. they it was that he killed testerman, right. so that he could eventually marry as marry his wife. so there's there's lots of these things. but for the miners, you know, they don't they don't care. right.

for them, that's noise. right. sid hatfield, a martyr. right. so baldwin felt at this point had martyr, right? a figurehead, the of the movement. he was someone who who represented. right. the fight against the repressive and oppressive coal mining or coal camp system. also, the felt's mine guard system as well. and and in in a result right. you know, this is going to lead to a lot of vandalism, a lot of destruction of, coal, property in the in the surrounding and the surrounding communities. you can actually see right from this map when we get to to to to blair mountain. but you see, right some of the territory was controlled here by the the mines. that's probe, that's pro-union territory. they are trying to expand into other. in order to do that, some people are vandalizing, they're cutting telephone lines, telegraph, they're blowing up. you know, coal reserves. they're firing and throwing rocks at company stores.

they never terrorize local populations should say that that's an important thing to make sure that we're pointing out. but they did target right the company itself, right. the things that they saw that were them are understood that were exploiting them. as a result, the governor of west virginia declares martial law in mingo county. when that happens, people get arrested in mass. some people were arrested for as little as having a united mine workers of america pamphlet in their back pocket. right people were arrested without cause, so they were locked up. this is certainly going to fuel even more anger and certainly at these rallies that are taking place, these pro mining these pro-union these pro-union rallies, people are beginning to see that the only way that they are going to get what they want rank to resist the mining operations in the coal the coal employers themselves was to resort to some level of so there's going to be a march and this is going to be it's going to be well now there's going to be a march of about 10,000

miners right there descend on on mingo county from charleston, virginia. there was a big rally there. there's also this, you know, they bring in some like counter forces, right? felts agents are there. there is there's actually three bombers that are brought in like literal like world war one bombers with some some world war one heroes. right. that were there. well, they're not there for the miners. they're there for like they're there for the governor of west virginia, who was basically hiding right in his in his office throughout the whole thing. but as this gets whipped into a frenzy, they start they're marching to mingo county to those people loose. right. who had been arrested in mass by by baldwin felts, by by the sheriff's department. right. of of of mingo county, by whatever law enforcement was there. but first, in order to get there they would have to go through that county right of logan county. and we can see the march here as they approach right. they're going to approach blair mountain that's going to be where the big battle is is really fault. it's going to last for three

days. there's 10,000 miners. it's not just i think there's about 1 to 2000 people that were solidarity strikers and solidarity fighters that came from elsewhere in in west virginia. but they but they do march so the the the sheriff of logan county comes with a plan. he says we're going to cut them off before get to the town. they're not even going to get into mingo and they're not going to get to the county seat of logan and say, we're going to meet them at blair mountain. and that's what he does. he takes 3000 people of own little army that consists of baldwin felts agents, his deputies, state law enforcement and mine guards of of the of the companies that were there. and they dig in these heavily entrenched, entrenched positions right there? like literal, like civil war era and world war one type trenches, you know, around the ridges, in the ravines of of blair mountain. and as the marchers come through there right there all armed at this point, you know, some of them had had rob company stores, they had taken ammo cartridges,

they had taken rifles. right. that's what they're that's they're marching with some of these miners, too, were immigrants from from europe they were veterans of world war one, right. they didn't just show up at the end of the war. they were there the entire time. right. so these are battle hardened people with real, you know experience in a meat grinder. right. you know, marching on this. i mean, you have this the ingredients for something truly terrible right to to happen as they approached blair mountain there some kind of outgrowths or outcrops of the of the miners march that are going to get through some of the less fortified positions into the town. logan but the battle at blair mountain is going to be the big one, that there's going to be shots that ring out. there's there's, i think one one of the miners was able somehow to commandeer gatling gun. right. so there's also gun positions, right. that the that the sheriff's deputy is using. right. and you also had those those war heroes that were there with war planes. right now, they don't actually fly those. right. but the sheriff of logan county, his last name was chaffin. he was was pretty riled up by by

those war figures. you know, being there, he gets a bunch of biplanes, right. and they pack these pipe bombs, black powder and nuts and bolts and they fly these biplanes overhead and they're dropping pipe bombs right on the miners. right. that are on the on the side of this mountain. none of those pipe bombs, poms, actually hit their target. right. but i do think actually one of the planes does crash into a house. but it is you know, they don't hit their target. but i mean, again, you can see the size this. right? i mean, you can see the size of the of the confrontation and that is taking place. i mean, there are bullets that are ricocheting right through the woods, through the ravines the the engines. right. and the explosions from those biplanes. right. are echoing off the off the buildings. off the off the rocks, off the off the trees themselves, you know. and when the dust settles, it's pretty interesting. there's as little or as few as 20 people that actually died. right over this three day battle. and it was really because of the entrenched positions. right. it was tough terrain. they were deeply entrenched,

very difficult for you know, very difficult for for close quarter or hand-to-hand combat to really be too successful. right you know, at this time. but some people do die. right. what ultimately an end to it is that governor or you know there the governor has communicating with washington with washington d.c. and federal troops come in the u.s. army comes in. there's 3000 us army troops that come into blair mountain and confront the miners, when they confront the miners, pretty much everybody at that point knew that it was over. right. they weren't going to fight us army. they they certainly didn't have the the ability to do that with their, you know, with their like 30, 30 winchester or right. rifles that's, that's not going to give them too much firepower. so over the next few days, 10,000 miners lay down there, lay down their arms and and surrender, you know, in the aftermath of this, i apologize. i should have the slide there in the aftermath of this there's going to be something like 100 and, you know, there's going to

be over a thousand indictments that are handed out. i think there's something like 100 or 300 people are charged with treason about where to go about with treason, 30 or 100 with sorry, 300 with murder. and roughly with with treason. none of the baldwin felts agents are charged with anything of them face an indictment of any sort. none of the cooperators of the sheriff's deputies either, right so, again, you know what we see and i think the miners take from this is that, again, the feds are siding with capital they're not siding with the miners. you themselves. and the results of this are devastating for the for them, unionization movement in the southern coalfields. it pretty much kills it. there were 50,000 miners in the in the united mine workers of america before blair mountain over the following months after it's over, that's going to be reduced to thousand. right. so it stops it, you know, dead in its in its tracks. the figurehead sid hatfield is dead. and certainly union membership

all over the country right at this time. this is certainly publicized pretty heavily. they're being demonized in the press more from that same kind of propaganda as the as the america plan. so where does this us i think. right. you know, it kills the unionization, but something is going to happen a decade later. that that brings it back. so you can't say that what was fought for. and what was lost here was was worthless. instead, 1929, there's going to be a stock market. the great depression is coming, which also going to bring the new deal order into play. when the new deal comes, that is going to to give labor an opportunity. right. to to organize, right to start pushing the federal government, pushing the presidency right. that's roosevelt to to create protection for workers and ultimately, 1935, the nlrb, the national relations board, will be created via via federal legislation, the wagner act. right.

that is going to to give the right of unions to collectively to collectively and to collectively bargain against their employers it outlawed blacklisting. it also right this this this wagner act outlawed the the mind guard system right so eventually. all right something is going to happen but what does that mean for them might not mean everything for them because certainly right. they they lost you know they they lost their blair mountain bringing in the federal troops to put that down certainly is going to do some some serious damage right to the to very radical activity that we that we really see now was unprecedented right at the time. it was unprecedented. it was you know, it was black, white, native born immigrant miners. right. you know, marching against not just the people that were oppressing them. right. know they're their bosses. right. but really enforcement, you know, state governments themselves and ultimately encountering the us army. so it you know what we see is that in the long run of history.

yes they they, they, they certainly did something positive. they made it possible. right. a decade later, 15 years later for the wagner act to be passed. not for nothing. the wagner act is currently being challenged in court by, i believe it is, space x trader, joe's, starbucks and amazon all all firms right now are all corporation right now that have faced big unionization drives the last few years. they are challenging the constitutionality of the nlrb to have, you know, the current supreme court overturn that so that is that is still on the thing so i mean what we see i think the importance here. right, is they did accomplish something right, but it certainly wasn't a victory that was that was was always stable. right. what they what they did, though, is they fought back against that oppression. they fought back right against. it you know, the the confines right. of the of the mining camp system and the the mining camps

themselves. right. their bosses to have some sort right of of of autonomy and freedom to provide it and eventually that'll come. right. but certainly it's it's never settled so i'll leave you with that that's that is where we and i think we'll we'll pick up next time in in in talking about really the mid 20th century and the and the appalachian regional commission some of the developments. right of these of these areas but that's it for today. so thank you for for being w