West Virginia Mine Wars: Battle of Blair Mountain

foreign [Music] millions of rounds fired later their Echoes ringing out U.S federal troops called in including the Air Force and all that most of these striking Mine Workers wanted was the Democratic process that many of them had just fought for during the Great War World War One to work and for justice to be applied evenly and fairly as U.S citizens August 1921 would be the most violent chapter of the Mine Wars at the Battle of Blair Mountain we're not only a clash of arms occurred but a clash of Visions for American society thank you hi I'm Josh welcome to Mountain Roots this is the 44th episode of my exploring Appalachia Series today I'm headed to Blair Mountain to see the area that was at the heart of the West Virginia Mine Wars in Appalachia Blair mountain is located in Logan County West Virginia the southwestern part of the state on my drive I began wondering why what happened to escalate tensions to such a powder keg situation [Music] it dawned on me that conditions were primed due to the wartime economic boom surrounding World War one that war had a profound effect on the lives of working people in the United States because until then there was routinely a surplus of Labor making unions somewhat redundant but Labor Relations forever changed once the war broke out flipping circumstances on their head as the economy heated up to keep Pace with the wartime effort of producing and exporting goods for Homeland abroad the influence of workers and unions grew in fact some unions saw their membership swell by 10 times the amount during the war one of the largest and most powerful of these unions was the umwa the United Mine Workers of America at the time even President Woodrow Wilson was viewed as a champion for unions although his pro-labor policies would end with the conclusion of the war and when it did clashing visions of how industrial America should look had workers in unions locking horns with company owners while government took a back seat labor strikes increased as company owners reasserted themselves tensions escalated there was these opposing visions that ultimately led to the largest armed conflict at the Battle of Blair Mountain since the war between the states when the North and South clashed in bloody battle if you've followed my exploring Appalachia series you've seen in many of my episodes that West Virginia is rich in natural resources chiefly Cole it was also a very difficult place for unions here due to the rugged terrain isolated towns and the fiercely independent character of the locals who called it home for extraction Industries like coal and the absentee mine owners it was an ideal situation where they could exert near absolute control over the lives of workers mining companies Justified their quasi-industrial police state here with its extensive economic and political Powers as necessary to combat the notorious boom and bust cycles of the industry [Music] very poor lands in company-owned towns which nearly 80 percent of the mining towns in Appalachia were company owned and extremely dangerous working environments for coal miners all under the guise of keeping costs low rather than citizens workers were treated as mere disposable surfs these company towns were a perversion of Justice where mine companies controlled both civil and Commercial life if you've seen my television show on PBS called hometowns in season one episode two on Bluefield I showed you the way miners were paid not in any U.S currency but rather a voucher type system known as script that can only be used in company stores and if miners desire to exchange it to actual currency The Exchange alone would siphon off 25 percent of their earnings this type of control also allowed companies to offset any wage increases by simply increasing their own prices unnecessary Goods mine owners also forced workers to sign yellow dog contracts these contracts ban workers from joining unions and if they were caught joining they along with their families would be thrown out of company-owned housing these conditions led to the umwa organizing in West Virginia as early as 1912 and a prominent unionizer arose in the midst of this era named Mother Jones when strikes occurred company enforcers would fire shots into Striker's home homes even declaring martial law violence had become the norm in Appalachian Labor Relations and where there was violence there was often the Baldwin Felts agency a private security firm employed by mining companies for one thing union busting their ranks were a cocktail of Hired Guns including former soldiers policemen convicts and minors they would work as mine guards informants and at times to give the appearance of authority of the law they would be sworn in as railroad detectives constables or Deputy sheriffs they were hated by Union minors and leaders for their forced evictions and brutality they represented the major obstacle to unionizing in West Virginia but by 1919 nearly half of the state's Minds were unionized yet a few of those were in the southwestern part of the state including the areas of Mingo and Logan counties if you watched my previous episode on Mate1 West Virginia you'll learn a massacre took place there it was an unusual town in that it maintained some independence from the coal companies its police chief sheriff and mayor reunion friendly by the way its police chief was none other than Sid Hatfield and on one fateful spring day in 1920 the Baldwin Felts agent showed up by order of the mine owners to evict families from their homes via the yellow dog contracts I mentioned earlier Hatfield and the mayor tried arresting the Baldwin Felts agents despite their claims they had a warrant to arrest Hatfield after inspecting the warrant the mayor said it wasn't legal that it was bogus and that's when it's claimed the Felts agents shot the mayor and a gunfight started later accounts make it unclear who shot who and who shot first but regardless Union Busters of Baldwin Felts were dead along with two coal miners this incident became known as the mate Juan Massacre and it galvanized the union movement seeing Union memberships swell by 19 21. it also led to a county-wide martial law being declared by the governor that only applied to unionizing minors Union activists were jailed without trial and miners families were assaulted in their makeshift camps as strikes increased and mine owners brought in strike Breakers the homeless coal miners and their families began Gathering and living in tent colonies under Grim conditions unions attempted to provide basic food shelter and Medical Services journalists described the minor colonies as having hundreds of families huddled pitifully around small fires under canvas that flapped in the high winds many tent dwellers lived on bare frozen ground and several children had died of pneumonia all while witnessing newborn babies present and many pregnant women unsurprisingly mine companies dismiss such accounts as being exaggerated in Spring of 1921 skirmishes began breaking out between armed Strikers and strike Breakers along the tug River then West Virginia governor Morgan asked U.S president Warren Harding to intervene but he would not taking the position that the matter was a state problem since Washington wouldn't help Governor Morgan called upon volunteers police and the Baldwin Felts agency to begin raiding these union territories to make arrests the government also went after Sid Hatfield putting him on trial for conspiracy and this is where things came to a head in my episode on Welch West Virginia which has been viewed millions of Times online now I showed the very spot on the courthouse steps where in August of 1921 Baldwin felt's agents ambushed Hatfield and his Deputy Ed Chambers both unarmed were shot dead in front of their wives the baldwinfeld's agents would later be acquitted of any wrongdoing however I wonder if history now judges differently the murder is epitomized the ordinary Mine Workers helplessness to resist the brutality of the pervasive mind guard system these killings ignited the fuse in West Virginia immediately union leaders organized a rally in Charleston West Virginia where 5 000 miners arrived and many were armed the miners now believed they were in a battle to reclaim their basic rights as American citizens because they're pleased to the governor had gone unanswered the more radical coal miners took control of the movement stealing weapons from the company's stores not least of which was a Gatling gun to reach Mingo County an estimated fifteen thousand miners white and black native born and immigrants wearing red bandanas as a symbol of their solidarity became known as the redneck army they would now have to pass through Logan County approximately three thousand anti-union forces were there to meet them gathered on the Towering Heights of Blair mountain in his 15-mile Ridgeline there they built breastworks and trenches on the two peaks overlooking the Blair Mountain Gap these anti-unionists also armed three private planes with homemade bombs to add to their Arsenal [Music] foreign [Music] to prevent the pending Doom West Virginia governor Morgan asked Washington again for help to which an appeal to the Union forces patriotism was made to disband or else face a snuffing out by the U.S army and at first it looked like thousands of miners had agreed to Simply go home for them they had no interest in fighting Uncle Sam but his fate would have it while they were waiting to catch trains to take them home co-operatives sent nearly 300 police to raid the town of Clothier to carry out arrests but were ambushed before they could get there rumors spread that police shot women and children in the gun fight which rekindled the anger of minors who had otherwise planned to go home now return to the fight on August 30th 1921 miners moved into positions around Blair mountain and the next day the battle began in Earnest police and anti-union forces were entrenched with numerous strongholds equipped with machine guns miners tried outflank the toughest positions but were repelled by rifle and machine gun fire gas and makeshift nail bombs were dropped in efforts by private aircraft to hit the miners despite Superior numbers the miners lack strategic Direction by September 1st Air Force planes appeared above Blair Mountain to Signal the imminent arrival of U.S federal troops seeing the riding on the wall the miners pulled back within a couple days a ceasefire was agreed upon despite over a million rounds being fired estimates are that around only a hundred or so people were killed in the events aftermath political attacks and counter-attacks were leveled as to who was to blame for things getting so out of hand Governor Morgan even leveled claims that the umwa was linked to International socialism and urged the military to arrest its leaders but the president refused later reports by the FBI did not substantiate these claims of socialist Espionage and influence true there were Radical groups who reacted to the events in West Virginia but they were not directing them these minors upheld the ideals of hard work the American dream and patriotism they weren't opposed to capitalist principles they only wanted the rules applied fairly to workers I'm convinced there wasn't more Bloodshed that day at Blair Mountain because the miners believed in the rule of law not a perversion of it they weren't there to revolt against the government in fact it's documented many of them waived American flags as they marched off after the defeat the sad reality was the conditions leading to the uprising in the first place would remain for another decade until federal labor laws would give miners another chance to reunionize the union itself was shattered its membership crashed from fifty thousand at the time of the battle of Blair Mountain to barely 600 a decade later legal battles strikes post-war Decline and demand for coal and an unsympathetic public left the Union in Ruins and its coffers empty for over a century now the West Virginia Mine Wars and the Battle of Blair Mountain have been largely kept out of History textbooks for fear it would tarnish the state's image even in recent years the mountain itself has been the target of companies looking to surface mining in 2006 Blair Mountain was designated as one of the United States most endangered historic places there is a nearly decade-long standoff as to whether Blair Mountain would remain on the national register of historic places and only after suit was filed did The Keeper of the national register declare that the removal of Blair Mountain's listing was an error those who don't remember the past or know their history are condemned to repeat its mistakes they're like a tree with no roots the Mine Wars are an important moment in U.S history that doesn't always get the attention it deserves and that's why I made this episode and I have one more stop to make I spoke with a local resident in Clothier who told me that the local umwa only has two members now her fear as workers have learned nothing from the past that they don't even know about it placing themselves in the hands and at the mercy of the powerful once more where do we go from here how can we achieve a meritocracy unencumbered by the extremes of socialism and the excesses of capitalism yet at a human scale that honors the Dignity of our humanity and our natural resources and free of the perversions of justice that history is wrought with foreign [Music] Appalachia looking at the Battle of Blair mountain and the events that led up to it if you've followed me for the last year year and a half as I've developed the exploring Appalachia series certainly telling the story of Appalachia isn't all about coal but coal is at the heart of the story here in West Virginia East Kentucky and Southwestern Virginia so I do want to take proper time and dedicate it to telling that part of the story that often gets overlooked and certainly suppressed especially like the Battle of Blair mountain and the story that's here I do want to tell this in a longer format I would love to do a proper full-length documentary on this as many of you know I'm now working with PDS Appalachia launching a new station there and producing television shows for them and I do have some backing and support there to work on these kinds of projects but to produce a full-length documentary takes proper underwriting it takes resources so if you're out there watching and maybe you or you know someone or a foundation or an organization that would like to get behind these types of stories and the documentaries that could be made in in the style and the format that you've grown to to enjoy here on Mountain roots and even some of the work I'm now doing at PBS reach out to me send me an email at the mountainrootsmail gmail.com or find my website mountainrootsproductions.com and reach out to me there through the contact form I would love to talk with you because at the end of the day I don't have unlimited resources and I certainly couldn't do this without your support I get a little bit of funding through YouTube but it's not much it it helps pay some of the gas to keep the wheels turning I do have valued patrons who have supported me some of you since the beginning of the exploring Appalachia series that's also a way to help fund these projects but to do a full-length documentary I need an entire pillar of support that would come in the form of some kind of underwriting to do that so again if that's you or someone you know and you would love to hear these stories told and see it in a longer form format documentary style reach out to me I'd like to talk with you and see if we couldn't collaborate thanks again for watching this episode and I as always I really appreciate you taking the time to to leave comments and share your own stories maybe your family's histories related to these events at Blair mountain or the surrounding towns or even you know in other states maybe you've had uh you know family stories passed down that have Echoes of the same struggles that we see here in Appalachia love to hear from you leave those comments below reach out to me and we'll see you in another episode

Channel: Mountain Roots

Views: 26,809

Keywords: battle of blair mountain, blair mountain, blair mountain battle, mine wars, coal wars, west virginia, appalachia, mountain roots, great war, 1921, hatfield, sid hatfield, baldwin felts detectives, baldwin felts, baldwin felts matewan, matewan, matewan massacre, matewan massacre documentary, coal mine wars, coal mine wars wv, Blair Mountain, history, world war 1, ww1, documentary, the great war, 1920s, strikes, coal mines, yellow dog, company towns, 1917, documentary series

Id: 1-Zrj7YNJfA

Length: 18min 42sec (1122 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 16 2023