Mackenzie New-Walker is the Executive Director of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum in Matewan, West Virginia. Having descended from a long line of miners, Mackenzie describes what life was like for the men, women & children in the oppressive coal company towns of the early 1900's: from how they recruiting their immigrant labor force to paying miners in substitute money called scrip; the private company guards aka "gun thugs" known as the Baldwin-Felts agents; to child labor and laundry day. From there we hear of 1921's Battle of Blair Mountain [the largest labor uprising in US history] where the fed up striking miners transformed into the "Redneck Army." Mackenzie then recounts the story of The Matewan Massacre, an earlier train station skirmish that has left bullets lodged in a brick wall across from the museum. After reflecting on how this all relates to the present & a sense of coal miner pride, we wrap it up with highlights from the museum's collection, including one about "a canary in a coal mine."
Check out the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum & help them fundraise to buy the museum building. Watch the PBS documentary American Experience: The Mine Wars.
Music provided by The Tillers
"Which Side Are You On" [Labor Union Song]
Collected by Pete Seeger
Performed by The Tillers
Reading segment from On Dark and Bloody Ground: An Oral History of the West Virginia Mine Wars by Anne T Lawrence
Special thanks to West Virginia Archives & History for archival recordings:
- Price Williams on the Cabin Creek 1912 Coal Strike
- WSAZ Coal King on a Tottering Throne ca 1962
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