Jeff Sharlet is the author of Jesus Plus Nothing: How American Fundamentalisms Power Elites Shaped the Faith of a Nation and the Politics of an Empire, forthcoming from HarperCollins. . This mine, called Brookside, attained national notoriety in the early 1970s after my family sold it to Eastover Mining, a subsidiary of Duke Power, one of the countrys largest energy corporations. There was janitors up there from the school., The other men chimed in. The strike is settled soon after, but the UMWA contract quickly expires. If the film crew hadn't been sympathetic to our cause, we would've lost. Barbara Kopple never responded to my requests for an interview, but I did talk to Anne Lewis, associate director of Harlan County, USA. We didnt have it that rough because we had some hogs and chickens. Rowlett moved back after securing a coveted position at the railroad company less than an hour away. Or that lament No one ever gets Harlan right, the one I had dubbed The Ballad of Harlan County. The lost songs I imagined were altogether different. I thought again of Johnsons story about my grandfathers cousin Jack. When I first saw Harlan County, USA, I was deeply moved by Workman, whom I had assumed was talking about my family. Its time for us to get just as violent as they are, she says to the Brookside Womens Club, the group of miners wives she began to lead. She talks about a standoff against Basil Collins and the scabs and gun thugs. 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. We will review the memorials and decide if they should be merged. By God, you fight fire with fire. In the 1970s, a strip-mining company asserted its ownership over the mineral rights for property he owned and forced him to sell the land. When images of the Brookside camp are cut with ones from a welfare camp that is in far worse shape, their distrust of the film is solidified. AFL-CIO's all communist.what's gonna happen to the country when the unions get in?" - Basil Collins, Mine Foreman, while armed . In 1973, he moved into camp housing at Brookside. The words KY MINE SUPPLY CO. stood up on the roof of a nearby vintage brick warehouse in white, as if issuing a challenge to the mountains behind it. June 10, 2022 The couple later founded the Cranks Creek Survival Center, a nonprofit that provided food, clothing and home repairs to area residents for decades. We do them no favor when we dont show them where the trends are going, he said. The settlement, by which the mine owners, the Duke Power Co., agreed to recognize the United Mine Wokers of America as the bargaining agent for. This account has been disabled. Some wanted it, he said, noting that he might have, too, but he didnt like the way people went about trying to bring it in. If you have questions, please contact [emailprotected]. There is 1 volunteer for this cemetery. Im home where I want to die at, in these mountains here, he says. Unemployment has hovered at 13.5 percent, one of the highest rates in the state, steadily forcing people out. Every so often, in a sweet and wistful state of mind, he would show them to me. This distinction doesnt matter to most viewers, of courseit never mattered to mebecause we are not attuned to the hyper-local sensibility that is so strong in a place such as Harlan. Rather, it seemed as though the commissary was sitting there waiting for everyone to tumble out of their Studebakers and walk through the door, fresh off the road from the fifties. the revealer is published by thecenter for religion and media at nyu. 1 Index Record. Hailing from Alabama, my great-great-uncles Augustus F. and Bryan W. Whitfield were among those drawn to Harlan seeking opportunity. It was just ragged and rough and they didnt care what went on.. I think [the film] saved a lot of people from getting killed, he said. It was a reality show., People wanted to just get through that strike. The company men have names, the organizers have names. The company insisted on having a no-strike clause in the proposed new contract. They also liked to gamble. Greene quoted a New York Times story published in 1938: A Harlan County camp is no weekend resort for sissies.. The nearest interstates were about sixty-five miles away in opposite directions, adding to the mines aura of isolation. Perhaps thats why Johnsons story about Jack haunted me. When I asked Nolan how work today compares to conditions in the 1970s, he said, Things have gotten way worse. For roughly a century after the railroad came in, Harlan flourished or suffered according to coals cycle of boom and bust; the countys population expanded or contracted accordingly. Lifelong Harlan County resident Priscilla Stephens, 66, recalls the death of her father, Charlie Simpson, from black lung disease in 1966. Me and him put it behind us. But to me, Harlan is different. A system error has occurred. 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. Please contact Find a Grave at [emailprotected] if you need help resetting your password. Get recipes worth repeating and more from A Couple Cooks, straight to your inbox. Work is often erratic for Robert, but he recently found three months work building a home. Try again later. (Most people who stood on the Brookside picket line are no longer alive.) He went out on strike with the Brookside miners. For me, said Lewis, right at the beginning of the film youre kind of dealing with the broader picture and then narrowing in. The intended broader picture is the greater American coal industry, the USA in Harlan County, USA. 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. Tom Hansell, Patricia Beaver and Angela Wiley, This page was last edited on 27 December 2022, at 06:42. Barbara Kopple: Harlan County, USA; that was my first ever film that I did on my own. How could I tell? Pretty soon all the guns are out, in broad daylight, and no help is coming, not for the union men (and union women; there never were more fearless soldiers than these mine wives), and not for the gun thugs, either. . Simpson spent 37 years in the mines to support his wife and 14 children. This year also marks the fortieth anniversary of the release of Harlan County, USA. In 2006, the Chicago Tribune declared that there have been few better movies about labor struggles before or since.. 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. The documentary is a bracing, dramatic David-and-Goliath story about coal miners pitted against Duke Power. I know every weed in the mountains, even here. There are no neutrals there Glad you enjoyed it! Sorry! Basil Collins in Kentucky. This basil cocktail is simple to make: the hardest part is muddling the fresh ingredients! The Basil Collins! A lot of people, he continues, dont understand that that electricity burning over therea sweeping gesture that takes in the whole city, shiny and modern, one giant black lung, reallytheres a man dying every day for that. Here is an edited version of that conversation. Eleven deaths were directly linked to those conflicts, during which the National Guard was called in twice. 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? When you get up in the morning and you got to take a hammer to make a hole in the water bucket to get you a drink of water, now that aint no good old days, he says. Youll want to extract some of the cucumber juice, so you can give it a little more elbow grease. Harlan County is a symbol, said Greene. 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. Its got a tangy sweet flavor, a cucumber basil essence and a load of bubbles packed in that glass. [2], When Kopple and her cameraman Hart Perry showed up on the picket line, the locals were suspicious of their intentions. In its 1889 coverage of a notoriously cold-blooded feud concerning the Turner and Howard families (both of whom happen to be my ancestors), the New York Times wrote: The country is wild, and the whistle of a locomotive has never been heard by many of the inhabitants. At the time, the county had a population of about six thousand. Harlan wasnt a war zone, but by the time one of the mine wives tucks her own pistol into her giant bosom and announces, By god, you fight fire with fire! its something a little worse, a piece of America walled-off or carved out of the rest of the world. Learn about how to make the most of a memorial. This flower has been reported and will not be visible while under review. But when a friend asked her if shed be willing to join the Brookside women on the picket line, Scott said shed be over the next day. I made ten dollars per garden. At Kopple, among others. Bazel Collins. My cousin Elizabeth had an even more powerful reaction to this scene. Once they killed Lawrence Jones they knew we was gonna kill all of them. Many who survived were still killed by coal, albeit more slowly. What you see is the reason why I moved here, said Johnson, who recently left Liberty, Kentucky, where he still owns property. Later, he considered his family fortunate because neither he nor his seven siblings died from the cold that engulfed the house. I was a bit concerned that my request to get out of his SUV would get him in trouble with his bosses at Manalapan and Nally & Hamilton, the companies that currently own Brookside and its equipment, though the tipple, the last part of the mine to operate, shut down three years ago. Its not good, says Napier. And thats still too vague. But in Henrys voice I also recognized something of my own fanged passion for the people I love. In 1973, Ferguson was working the roof bolt machine at Highsplint, which helps to stabilize the mine roof. Environmental groups say other factors, such as the abundance of cheap natural gas, are behind coals slump. By JEFFREY COLLINS today. There was a time when coal miners saw themselves as heroically serving the country. The unions left with the mines. 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. Kopple took a cinma-vrit approach to weaving together these threads. He was a survivor of the Bataan Death March. The lack of voice over and minimal title cards can sometimes create confusion for the viewer, but the strike is fraught with enough dramatic tension to present a cohesive whole. They say in Harlan County, there are no neutrals there, Florence Reece sings. Suggest an edit or add missing content. Photos larger than 8Mb will be reduced. These days, people come to the old Brookside property wanting to hunt or to find ginseng, which they can dry and sell for up to $1,400 a pound. In his 2016 State of the Union address, President Obama called for new investment in communities reliant on fossil fuels. He struck me as being like a lot of the men in my familymen whom novelist Tom Franklin describes as the sensitive guys at the dogfight.. Strain the drink into an ice-filled highball glass. I don't think we'd have won it without the film crew. Harlan County was fighting for the right to have a union. His pain began in 1983 after a rib rolla mine roof support collapsesent a big old rock into his back, forcing him into early retirement. He worked in dog hole (or low vein) mines, hauled and sold liquor for bootleggers, and built fires at four A.M. to heat the local schools. 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. Do you think this would work? I met Dr. James Greene III, the local historian, in front of one of the miners memorials: two tall granite columns engraved with an astounding 1,300 names flanking a center stone of polished black granite. Add the cucumber slices and muddle again. Fergusons wife, Mary Louwhose long brown hair and bangs gave her an elderly girlishnesshad stood on the picket line with him. It was a pretty rough time, Nolan told me. Top with soda water and garnish with additional cucumber slices and basil. You could make good money. Weve updated the security on the site. It was directed and produced by filmmaker Barbara Kopple, then early in her filmmaking career. We set off in his white Crown Vic for a tour of the Smoky Mountains, which appeared as inviting as pillows stacked five deep on a hotel bed, a sharp contrast to Harlans rugged peaks. What happens in the movie is this: The men of the Brookside Mine in Harlan go on strike because the Duke Power Company refuses to recognize their right to join the United Mine Workers of America. 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. Jackie Stump says: There may not be a real fighting union again in his lifetime. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate, or jump to a slide with the slide dots. I had heard that the coal miners memorials in downtown Harlan listed twice as many names as all of the towns war memorial statues combined, and I wanted to see for myself. I paced my living room, where images of my family sit atop bookcases, including one of my grandfather as a little boy dressed in a sailor suit and giant straw hat, then managed to shakily jot down the words love and your papaw.. But I knew I didnt want to come back in a few years and find this place finally, officially gone. Please complete the captcha to let us know you are a real person. Thats not to suggest that the mood was tense or unfriendly; it felt like changing shifts. He shut down that coal mine and stacked all his belongings and equipment up and never used them again and never mined coal again in his life.. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, and elsewhere. My grandfathers cousin Bryan didnt much care for his fancy home in Florida, so he was still living next door. In all, she worked on the film for four years, including preparation and editing. Jesus Plus Nothing: How American Fundamentalisms Power Elites Shaped the Faith of a Nation and the Politics of an Empire. They were ready to fight! It was enough to feed the Fergusons and their four kids, ages two to thirteen, until a van concealing a machine gun pulled up to his brother Tommys house and opened fire, shooting sixteen holes into the slide of a swing-set Tommy and his wife had just purchased for their children; nine holes into the house; and one into the babys swing. Once the canning season ended, he traveled back down the Hillbilly Highway, as the route between the highland South and the northern industrial centers was called, for Harlan. Its stood the test of time and makes the list of the International Bartender AssociationsIBA official cocktails, meaning it has an official definition. A coal country Atlantis. Are you sure that you want to report this flower to administrators as offensive or abusive? Top with. Im gonna change things. And they did. Fighting for my right to have the UMWA, for safety in the mines. But I also see now why the film is so upsetting to my family. Why must this song chase her to the grave? Here are a few ideas: *To convert to ounces, 1 ounce = 2 tablespoons, Keywords: Basil cocktail, cucumber basil cocktail, lemon basil cocktail, Tag @acouplecooks on Instagram and hashtag it #acouplecooks, Published on May 23, 2021 / Last updated on July 31, 2021. Some people hold grudges their whole life, said one of the scabs. As I traveled a ribbon of road across northeastern Tennessee, fields and rolling hills spread before me, dotted with barns adorned with quilts. Like Henry, these men were now in their sixties and seventies, and retired from the mines but still working in a variety of capacities, from doing occasional contracting jobs to volunteering in the community. You might describe it as the difference between daylight and dark, said Nolan. At their best Kopple and photographer Hart Perry bear unassuming, expressive witness to the experiences, aspirations and abiding grievances of the Brookside miners and their wives, who organized auxiliary strike actions. The meat and dairy cases stood waiting for someone to fill them up and turn the power back on. Failed to delete memorial. Chester had done so well that the company owner tried to entice him to stay with a raise of $1 per hour, from $6.75 to $7.75. 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. Once you add the cucumber slices, you can muddle with a little more force. A miner who, until this conversation, thought that at least the compensation he received for working one of the most dangerous jobs in America was decent, says no, he does not have dental. Yablonski had challenged W.A. Just another site. 12. Harlan remained a rough frontier well into the early twentieth century. The hurts that people put on each other during a strike dont heal too easy, said Brookside UMWA miner Junior Deaton. Like an article of faith, you had to believe in Harlans future to see it. There had been a strike at the mine in the 1950s. Kentucky State Police said by telephone that they had arrested and charged with "malicious shooting and wounding with intent to kill" Billy C. Bruner, 39 years old, said to be a foreman at one of. And while hes open to working in other industries, jobs anywhere are in short supply. (Elizabeth told a story of when Hollywood producers came to the Kitts Creek mine in the late 1970s, scouting locations for the film, 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. This post is archived, some links or media may be broken. Its tart and bubbly, with fresh herbs and cucumber. "[6], The film received a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the aggregator site. Thank God for them; thank God they're on our side. Kopple and her crew spent years with the families depicted in the film, documenting the dire straits they encountered while striking for safer working conditions, fair labor practices, and decent wages. COPYRIGHT 2016 IN THESE TIMES AND THE INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS. Its due to the loose handling of facts that frame the strike at the beginning of the film. Please check your email and click on the link to activate your account. I thought about trying to find something else, but there aint much stuff around here to do, he says. 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. I not only craved the chance to view something close to what they might have seen in the late 1700s, but twelve years had passed since I last visited this placeI needed to make sure that the mountains were still here, that they had not been ground to nothing, their coal stripped off for points afar, the land and my familys history going right along with it to power the iPhone that I worried like a rosary in my hand, a modern holy thing. My father, the only college graduate among his nine siblings (as I am the only one among my parents four children), had eventually grown tired of being poor and left the church to go into business as a roofing contractor. We drove past meadows washed in golden sunlight and headed into a thick forest where we parked by a stream. We didnt have no rights. Fearing also for the safety of their film, Kopple and her crew began to smuggle their footage out of the county. (Most every able-bodied person I met in Harlan was either still working, or yearning to work; hard work defines this place.) There were close to one hundred mines back then. William Floyd Collins, July 20, 1887 - c. February 13, 1925 Floyd Collin's Crystal Cave. Fill a Collins (tall) glass with ice. Angrier; forty years ago! Each month, millions of tons of coal are excavated from the seams of the Appalachian Mountains. 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