You couldnt starve me to death., The Brookside strike and the union changed Johnsons life for the betterbut so did Kopple and Lewis. Harlan would have likely remained sparsely populated if some of the countrys richest seams of bituminous coalalso known as steam coal, which is medium grade and full of a tar-like substancehad not been discovered in its hills. In 1973, he moved into camp housing at Brookside. After the strike, Lewis married Jerry Johnson, one of the striking coal miners depicted in the film. This refreshing basil cocktail is a summery spin on the Tom Collins! When I asked him what inspired him to join the cause, he said, I was fighting for myself and everybody else. She and her crew moved in with miners and became deeply involved in their plight. Hundreds of volunteers came each year to fix porches, hang dry wall and mend roofs. Because of how the film is edited, one believes that she is referring to the prior owners of Brooksidewhich means she is talking about my family. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary at the 49th Academy Awards. A lot of kids froze to death right in the house. Following a conflict with his father in 1959, Chester moved to Chicago, where his two older brothers and one of his sisters lived. My grandfather went into the mines with his men every day and he died of lung cancer, she later wrote. Some people hold grudges their whole life, said one of the scabs. It wasnt until a Rolls-Royce sat in one of their garages that I fully comprehended the truth: they were indeed quite rich. In fact, the enemy she described was a very different mine owned by a large corporation. The National Geographic Channel reality show, Kentucky Justice, about a Harlan County sheriff, portrays the communitys very real desperation. My maternal grandmother was the last of my grandparents to die, in 2001. Thanks to my mothers talent for saving her piano-teacher salaryand some help from my maternal grandparentsI was able to attend an exclusive Atlanta private school, where my friends were picked up in Mercedes and BMWs and whisked away to expansive Buckhead mansions. Authors of recipes you'll want to make again and again. A lot of the miners dont have it. Found more than one record for entered Email, You need to confirm this account before you can sign in. We have set your language to My cousin Elizabeth had an even more powerful reaction to this scene. 8 8.what happened to basil collins kentucky 9 9.Interview with Lois Scott, August 27, 1986 - SPOKEdb 10 10.basil collins harlan county obituary - Energy Connection And I imagined the blankets Johnsons grandmother made with patterns of blocks and bright stars, tucked around generations of Harlans children whose parents prayed for their safety and their futures. Today he wore jeans and a navy hooded sweatshirt, with his neatly trimmed silver-white hair tucked under a Tractor Supply Company cap. Add the cucumber slices and muddle again. Youre safe here with us.. Its Appalachian. At Kopple, among others. Years after the strike, Eastovers president, Norman Yarborough, conceded that the UMWA out public-relationed us all over the place. The union launched a highly effective national Dump Duke campaign urging people to dump Duke stock; they sent miners in their work clothes to the New York Stock Exchange floor. After Kopple screened the 1954 film Salt of the Earth, which portrays striking miners in New Mexicoa film that had been blacklisted owing to its Communist leaningsfor the miners, the union dropped her funding. You can call us scabs. They had no problem with the term whatsoever. It was the first time Id seen the sun since climbing up the Brookside hillside with Nolan and Elizabeth, and I basked in it like a cat, savoring how Johnsons car absorbed the heat. That was just to razz me in good fun, a show of Harlan Countys enduring frontier spirit. You could make a batch of the main ingredients in a pitcher and have people do equal parts mix and soda water (it would be slightly more watered down but still taste great). See, everything in the mountains has always been kept silent about child labor and mine safety., Even after the strikes successful completion, Johnson felt that the system was stacked against him and his fellow picketers. All this turmoil happened in Harlan County in the early seventies, and right now theres some people who are just beginning to speak to me, he said. Once you add the cucumber slices, you can muddle with a little more force. Jackie Stump says: There may not be a real fighting union again in his lifetime. When people need to trot out poverty, labor violence, or feudalism, they use Harlan County, and thats part of our problem here. Of course, in coming back to follow the trail of this strike and film, Im yet another outsider mining the very history that the town would like to escape. By the time he was eighteen, he was mining coal full time. Garnish with a lemon round or of an orange round, plus a cocktail cherry. Initially, they sold candles to fund raise for community members who couldnt pay their electric bills but quickly realized this was just a Band-Aid. At times, I preferred him to my mother for his ability to be real, as I put it as a teen. Because of my parents backgrounds, there has always been a class war raging inside of me, a struggle that I am bound to lose no matter which side I choose. Please check your email and click on the link to activate your account. All photos uploaded successfully, click on the Done button to see the photos in the gallery. Jerry Johnson, one of the striking Eastover miners, attributes the conclusion of the strike to the presence of Kopple and her film crew: "The cameras probably saved a bunch of shooting. And thats still too vague. All the same, Im positive that theyre not Southern. Thank God for them; thank God they're on our side. I had to get on to college. what happened to basil collins harlan county. Johnson and some friends eventually hitchhiked to Scottsburg, Indiana, where canneries were hiring for harvest season. His bet? Just before this contract ran out in 1973, Brookside miners voted to join the UMWA. Ive always wondered if his killing was somehow connected to labor strife. Alex Murdaugh's family long dominated the legal scene in his small South Carolina county but for the past six weeks, Murdaugh has been on the other side of the courtroom, standing trial on murder charges in the shootings of his wife and son. Harlan County USA divides us into two groups: Those that love it and those that hate it. (The Revealer has been wobbly of late while Ive been attending to other duties, but the spring crunch is almost past. I hope its a true one. Ferguson was blacklisted at other mines. The strikers and management finally agreed to come to the bargaining table after his death. They didnt want to make a lot of enemies because you might have to marry into their families., The real story is people coming in here and stirring up controversy. Barbara Kopple never responded to my requests for an interview, but I did talk to Anne Lewis, associate director of Harlan County, USA. Though I did meet a miner who labored in Harlans mines as a child, Henry was adamant that children never worked in the Whitfield mines. You may not upload any more photos to this memorial, This photo was not uploaded because this memorial already has 20 photos, This photo was not uploaded because you have already uploaded 5 photos to this memorial, This photo was not uploaded because this memorial already has 30 photos, This photo was not uploaded because you have already uploaded 15 photos to this memorial. And we know who Florence Reece is, the woman who wrote Which Side Are You On? in the Bloody Harlan battles of the 1930s and who shows up at a rally to sing it one more time for the miners two generations removed from its inception, for them and for her father, dead of black lung, for her husband, dying of black lung. Its hard to take Basil seriously until hes shooting. Old men recall being paid six cents an hour for fourteen-hour days inside unsafe mines, and claim that the state government, the Catholic Church and the old union worked with coal officials against the miners. Elizabeth later wrote to me: I think today we use the expression blood, sweat, and tears metaphorically, but for the family it was literal. It rippled cross the country I remember running into a camouflaged crew in Southern Illinois thatd just set a fox they said was rabid on its way down into a mine full of scabsbut I never was able to figure out who won. Johnson hightailed it out of Harlan and moved to Ohio to work at North American Coal. Her voice wobbling like its about to fall down, her face shrunken like an old apple, her eyes behind her big goggle glasses like little explosions: Shes weak and tired, but shes as angry as she was forty years ago. I was intensely aware that if someone came upon the place with violent intentions, Elizabeth and I would have been trapped. L. Winship Award for Best Work of Nonfiction of 2010. There had been a strike at the mine in the 1950s. Harlan County, U.S.A. is a ghost story. Coal mining was Americas most dangerous occupation by the 1970s. Contribute to this page. It was time for Elizabeth to leave for work at her familys firewood-packing business, which they started to help improve Harlans economy after coals collapse. This relationship is not possible based on lifespan dates. Mine workers in Harlan won living wages and benefits following a series of strikes and violent clashes with scabs and mine owners in the 1930s that earned the county the nickname Bloody Harlan.. Use Escape keyboard button or the Close button to close the carousel. I am proud of my Harlan heritage, in spite of the history I have struggled to accept, and I am proud of Harlan County, USA. The strike began in July 1973 and lasted 13 months. My mother long had a photograph of that porch on her dresser: a portrait of my grandfather and his uncle and cousin. I know which side Im on, but I cant find it. The UMWA spent more than $1.5 million on the Brookside strike, the equivalent of $8.6 million in todays dollars. Parts of the documentary troubled me, though. Meanwhile, coal continues to fade from the energy landscape. The community is not only suffering, says Chester Napier, 75, a former mining company driver. Alternately, I would go through phases of favoring my mother, who is undeniably sweet, and savoring the comforts of her world. Nolan, age seventy-one, is a retired miner. He was unmoved. ), Thank God they signed that contract or Id probably still be in prison, Johnson said, speaking again of the strike documented in Harlan County, USA. My great-grandfather Howard, who was president of a mining rights company, was run off a snowy mountain road in 1947, his car later found at the bottom of a hollow, his body stripped of his wallet and watch. Im also resolutely on the side of the films pro-union stanceIm a union member myself, at New York University. After it was all over with they wouldnt speak to you or nothing, neither. William Floyd Collins was born on July 20, 1887 , on the Collins family farm, located approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Mammoth Cave near the Green River in Kentucky.He was the third child of Leonidas "Lee" Collins and Martha Jane Burnett, who gave birth to eight children: Elizabeth (died at three months of age), James "Jim", Floyd, Annie, Andy Lee, Marshall, Nellie, and Homer. Perhaps this was ultimately why labor issues burn people up so terribly, because they always come down to familythe families were born into along with the ones we raise, and the brotherhood and sisterhood that work creates for us, especially down in the mines, and for men like Ferguson and Johnson. The Miners for Democracy leadership negotiates a new contract with a no-strike clause, but few people in the film are happy with this outcome. Usery Jr. summoned Eastover president Norman Yarborough and Duke Powers board chairman to Washington, D.C., where they signed the UMWA contract at last. When Harlans coalfield was developed in the 1910s, the rocky terrain made transportation to the mines difficult, necessitating the creation of camps to house the workers. The nearest interstates were about sixty-five miles away in opposite directions, adding to the mines aura of isolation. To add a flower, click the Leave a Flower button. Shake for 15 seconds until cold. The intensity in his voice crescendoed, pride and defensiveness coming through loud and clear. Before I left for Kentucky this springfive years after I first saw the movieI set up interviews with people on both sides of the conflict, including one man who I was told could speak to the company perspective. They are also dependent upon support from people near and far, which explains why folks came from out of the woodwork to stand with the miners. terms and conditions. He described the film as "One of the better and more rousing labor strike films that calls attention to class war in America, though it doesn't offer enough analysis or balance on the issues (it sees the struggle solely through the miners' eyes)The film does a good job chronicling the plight of the miners and telling their personal stories in a moving way, and the meaningful catchy coal mining songs add to the emotional impact of the historical event. These storylines are interspersed with scenes of Harlans poverty; discussions of the industrys risks and hardships, including early child labor practices and the prevalence of black lung; and passages about Harlans notorious 1930s. When miners at the Brookside Mine in Harlan County, Kentucky, went on strike against Duke Power Company in June 1973, Kopple went there to film the strike, which the UMWA had helped to organize. Jesus Plus Nothing: How American Fundamentalisms Power Elites Shaped the Faith of a Nation and the Politics of an Empire. Top with. It may have been Prohibition, Greene told me as we sat on an overstuffed couch at the Little Inn, the Harlan bed-and-breakfast where I stayed, but there was moonshine going all over the place. Many of his friends have faced similar challenges and left the area, but Danny says he has no plans to move because he has a lot of family nearby. During part of the filming, Kopple and her crew stayed with the Ferguson family until they got wupped, Billy said, describing the scene when the filmmakers were attacked. To startwith, lets get at least one thing straight: Harlan County, Kentucky, the location of Barbara Kopples 1976 documentaryHarlan County, U.S.A., isnt really the South, is it? Pine Mountain stood tall to the north; to the south was Cumberland Gap, across which Daniel Boone led settlers. Nine months into the strike, a bunch of miners go up to Wall Street to pass out fliers. The striking miners travel to North Carolina and New York City to picket Wall Street, encouraging investors to Dump Duke. The utterly fearless Lois Scott leads their charismatic wives to keep the cause going back home. I call it The Ballad of Harlan County. If it had a chorus, it would be about how Harlan and Appalachians are represented to the rest of the worldas uneducated, shiftless, and toothless. In: A. McColl. Here is an edited version of that conversation. Jones was well liked, young, and had a 16-year-old wife, and a baby. 7. There is a problem with your email/password. There are not many takers. This flower has been reported and will not be visible while under review. This was my third trip to Harlan. Its not that Kopples trying for a collective character, the union en masse; its that her camera is too close, too much part of the fighting, to pluck out individual souls from among the miners. . Once they killed Lawrence Jones they knew we was gonna kill all of them. Sheriff J. H. Blair, backed by the Harlan County Coal Operators Association, who counted my relatives among their members, deployed close to two hundred deputized mine guards to snuff out both unions. My need to walk this land felt like a hand at my back, pushing me ahead of Nolan and Elizabeth and past the two deer that stood to the side of the rutted road. Early in the film Boyle is shown in good health. She talks about incidents of violence during the standoff. Get more of what the mainstream media leaves out. Danny cares for his 7-year-old son, Aiden, and occasionally hunts ginseng on the nearby mountains to sell for a few dollars per pound. Cans of coffee, cracker tins, Radio Girl perfume, dresses with sweetheart necklines, and shoes in their original boxes all sat on the shelves, ready to be sold. Was this man singing and talking about my grandfather, my grandfathers cousin, or my great-great-uncle? When the labor union known as the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) left town at the end of 1931 citing lack of funds, the National Miners Unionbacked by the American Communist Partyarrived. My grandfathers cousin Bryan didnt much care for his fancy home in Florida, so he was still living next door. Though Henry taught me that forgiveness is possible. Heres what youll need to make a Basil Collins: This basil cocktail is perfect for summer, when youve got a prolific basil plant. Cameron. There we was, out in the cold with no job or nothing. He worked in logging for a while and eventually had to go outside the county to find mining work, which he did until his accident. You own it. 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