Harlan County War
Harlan County War | |||
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Part of the Coal Wars | |||
Date | 1931–1939 | ||
Location | Harlan County, Kentucky, United States | ||
Parties | |||
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Lead figures | |||
Sheriff J. H. Blair | |||
Casualties and losses | |||
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The Harlan County War, or Bloody Harlan, was a series of coal industry skirmishes, executions, bombings and strikes (both attempted and realized) that took place in Harlan County, Kentucky, during the 1930s. The incidents involved coal miners and union organizers on one side and coal firms and law enforcement officials on the other.[1] The Harlan County coal miners campaigned and fought to organize their workplaces and better their wages and working conditions. It was a nearly decade-long conflict, lasting from 1931 to 1939. Before its conclusion, an unknown number of miners, deputies and bosses would be killed, state and federal troops would occupy the county more than half a dozen times, two acclaimed folk singers would emerge, union membership would oscillate wildly and workers in the nation's most anti-labor coal county would ultimately be represented by a union.
History
On February 16, 1931, to maximize profits, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. Reacting to the unrest created within Harlan's impoverished labor force, the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) attempted to organize the county's miners.[2][3] Employees who were known by their bosses to be union members were fired and evicted from their company-owned homes. Before long, most of the remaining workforce had gone on strike in solidarity.[4]: 32 Only three of Harlan's incorporated towns were not owned by mines, hungry and evicted workers and their families sought refuge in them, primarily in the town of Evarts. They found sympathy there with spurned politicians and business owners who wished to see the company stores vanish.[4]: 32
At the peak of the first strike, 5,800 miners were idle and only 900 working.
Sheriff J. H. Blair and his men came to our house in search of Sam – that's my husband – he was one of the union leaders. I was home alone with our seven children. They ransacked the whole house and then kept watch outside, waiting to shoot Sam down when he came back. But he didn't come home that night. Afterward I tore a sheet from a calendar on the wall and wrote the words to 'Which Side Are You On?' to an old Baptist hymn, 'Lay the Lily Low'. My songs always goes to the underdog – to the worker. I'm one of them and I feel like I've got to be with them. There's no such thing as neutral. You have to be on one side or the other. Some people say, 'I don't take sides – I'm neutral.' There's no such thing. In your mind you're on one side or the other. In Harlan County there wasn't no neutral. If you wasn't a gun thug, you was a union man. You had to be.[5]
Strikers exchanged gunfire with private guards and local law enforcement; strikebreakers were set upon and beaten.[6][7][8] The most violent attack by mine workers occurred on May 5, 1931, and became known as the Battle of Evarts. The miners lay in ambush for cars delivering materials to strikebreakers and shot at them. Three company men and one striker were killed in the exchange.
The Kentucky National Guard was called in. The strikers expected protection but upon replacing deputized mine guards, the National Guard broke the picket lines instead.[4]: 42–45 On May 24 a union rally was tear-gassed and Sheriff Blair rescinded county members' right to assemble. By June 17, the last mine had returned to work. No concessions were given by the mine operators and UMW membership plummeted.[4]: 47
In the wake of the UMW failure, the Communist National Miners Union (NMU) made a brief play for Harlan County. Though most workers felt disillusioned with organized labor, the NMU's radical ideology gained some support, ten local lodges sprang up before the Harlan County NMU was officially chartered. The smaller but more passionate NMU made greater relief efforts than the UMW, opening several soup kitchens in the county.[4]: 56–88 Their attempts at strikes, while weak in surrounding counties, were utter failures in Harlan, where only a fraction of the workforce walked out in 1931 and 1932.[9] Several events broke the NMU's foothold, local labor organizers, many of them clergy, learned of the Communist leadership's animosity toward religion and denounced the organization, Young Communist League organizer Harry Simms was killed in Harlan and the American Red Cross and local charities, who had been unwilling to take sides in a labor dispute, began giving aid to blacklisted miners who were unemployable as the NMU's financial troubles necessitated the closing of its soup kitchens.[4]: 79
Under the auspices of the
Where the NIRA had been toothless in Harlan, the
Impact
Author and activist
California labor activist
See also
- Which Side Are You On?
- Damnation (TV series)
- Murder of workers in labor disputes in the United States
- Coal Wars
- Mining in the United States
- Copper Country strike of 1913–1914
- Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894
- West Virginia coal wars
- Illinois coal wars
- Colorado Labor Wars
- Molly Maguires
- Battle of Blair Mountain
- Coal strike of 1902
- List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States
- 2019 Harlan County coal miners protest
- Harlan County, USA
References
- ^ "STRIFE IN KENTUCKY IS LIKENED TO WAR: Investigator Who Was Jailed ...". New York Times. November 18, 1931. p. 18.
- ^ Stark, Louis (September 29, 1931). "HARLAN WAR TRACED TO PAY-CUT REVOLT: Subsequent A.F. of L. Unionizing ...". The New York Times. p. 3.
- ^ Stark, Louis (October 3, 1931). "LIMIT IN WAGE CUTS REACHED IN HARLAN: SCENE IN HARLAN COUNTY (KENTUCKY) INDUSTRIAL STRIFE". The New York Times. p. 13.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-252-00270-0. Retrieved September 12, 2022.
- ^ "Hall of Fame: Power of Arts & Creative Expression -". February 17, 2009.
- ^ Stark, Louis (September 28, 1931). "Harlan Coal Fields Face Civil War; Kentucky County Is an Armed Camp". The New York Times. p. 1.
- ^ "MINE TRIAL WITNESS TELLS OF WHIPPING: He Asserts Union Men Applied .". The New York Times. December 1, 1931.
- ^ "HARLAN MAN LASHED UNTIL HE COLLAPSED: Witness at Jones Trial Says ...". The New York Times. November 27, 1931. p. 6.
- ^ "Strike Closes a Few Mines". The New York Times. January 2, 1932. p. 12.
- ^ "JOHN HENRY BLAIR.: Sheriff of Harlan County, Ky,, in Mine Labor Difficulties". The New York Times. May 12, 1934. p. 15.
- ^ "KENTUCKY TROOPS MOBILIZE IN HARLAN: Company Is Called Out as the Mine ...". The New York Times. December 9, 1934. p. 2.
- ^ "TROOPS WATCH AS HARLAN VOTES: Turbulent County Ballots Heavily". The New York Times. September 8, 1935. p. 27. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
- ^ "TROOPS AGAIN MOVE ON HARLAN COUNTY: Occupation of Kentucky Area". The New York Times. September 29, 1935. p. N10. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
- ^ "BOMB IN AUTO KILLS KENTUCKY OFFICIAL: Harlan County Attorney ...". The New York Times. September 5, 1935. p. 17.
- ^ Witnesses to the Struggle, Anne Loftis, University of Nevada Press, 1998, p. 46
External links
- "Prepare to Meet Thy God: War in the Harlan County Coal Fields" by Katie Rorrer (broken link)
- "Remembering Bloody Harlan". Parallel Narratives. March 13, 2011. Retrieved April 5, 2013.