Weekend Matewan labor dispute reenactment to include author John Velke

[Omaha Steve]

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Matewan labor dispute reenactment to include author John Velke
CHARLESTON W.Va.

An unlikely guest is expected to change up the Matewan Massacre reenactment in the southern coalfields this weekend.

For the first time, author John Velke plans to attend, said Matewan Massacre director Donna May. Velke wrote "The True Story of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency," a book that hopes to set the record straight about the agency's role in history.

Velke's phone call was completely unexpected.

"This man said he was calling from Alabama and he said, 'You may not want to hear from me when you find out who I am,'" May recalled. "Then he told me he was a descendent of William Baldwin and I said 'Wow, yes, you would be welcome. Our town stood up for the rights of mine workers, but your family lost lives as well.'"

The Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency was a private security company hired by coal operators to evict miners living on company property while they were trying to unionize and provide security for the mines. In 1920, 12 men died after a gun fight broke out between miners and Baldwin-Felts agents.

The reenactment will take place at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday at the railroad tracks in Matewan.

Though kin of coal miners have long participated in the reenactment, this year Velke will give attendees his side of the story, May said.

"We're so excited to hear from him and give each of the descendents an opportunity to share their stories," May said. "We always give two sides, but now we get it from the source."

Matewan is not taught much in schools, May said, but its importance to the state's history is undeniable.

"It wasn't the first battle of its kind, but it certainly made a significant mark in the state and the region, and particularly the coalfields," said Professor Ken Fones-Wolf, who teaches labor history at West Virginia University and shows his students the movie "Matewan" in class.

"With World War I, the unionization of the southern coalfields had dramatically expanded and the massacre and its aftermath in some sense was seen as the signal that the coal operators were going to roll back the gains that the workers had made through unions," Fones-Wolf said.

It's a typical tension in labor, where employers want to maximize profits and workers want to maintain a certain standard of living through wages and working conditions, he said.

May and Fones-Wolf agree that one facet of labor history is consistently misrepresented.

"In really strong working-class communities, family is critical, so women inevitably played a significant part and frequently could do things that men couldn't do, like go out on picket lines," Fones-Wolf said.

"They could say things that men would have been possibly locked up for saying."

May plays the role of Jessie Testerman Hatfield, who she feels has been criticized unfairly for marrying Syd Hatfield after her husband was killed in the massacre.

"I want our daughters, our nieces to see the sacrifices these women made in 1920. As a business owner, I know how a small town operates and this rumor was always hanging over Jessie's head," May said. "But she would have lost everything she had if she didn't remarry and remarry quickly."

The reenactment is styled as a play, with each historical figure performing a monologue on their role that day. And of course, there's the gun battle.

But May warns that the fight isn't just a bloody gun fight.

"It was not a fight between union and nonunion, it was a fight for human rights," May said. "These miners lives depended on whether or not a canary stayed alive in the mine. In those days, the mule that worked in the mine was more important than the man."
May 15, 2007