Harlan County, U.S.A.

[Zomby Woof]

If you are able to locate a copy of this, by all means, you MUST see this. The IFC channel ran it not too long ago. It was released in 1976.

Powerful, amazing documentary of the coalminers' strike in Harlan County, Kentucky, which started in 1973, and went on well over a year.

Heartbreaking, moving, and often infuriating. It was one of the last great victories for American labor.

Info here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074605/

[Liquorice]

1. I agree. It's a great documentary. nt

[kentuck]

2. I think that is Harlan County, Kentucky?

But Matewan is another excellent movie and it takes place in West Virginia.

[Zomby Woof]

6. Yes, Kentucky

Thank you. Damn middle age, lol.

Fixed it in my OP.

[kentuck]

7. That's my part of the country..

Born about 7 miles from the Harlan County line.

[Zomby Woof]

8. One of my great-grandfathers was a coal miner

Although he mined in northern Wyoming, near the town of Sheridan. Impossible work in impossible conditions. This was back in the 1910's through the 1940's. My grandmother - his daughter - was born in a town called Kooi in the early 1920's. It was created by the mining company for the miners, and once it was mined out, the town ceased to exist. She had a helluva time years later when her employer required a security background check, and held it up because there was no evidence the town existed. The government of Wyoming intervened (she lived in CA), and she cleared the check, lol.

[create.peace]

17. my great-great grandfather was a widower with two children, and a soft coal miner in

southern illinois in the 1860s, when he became sick with what is now black lung, and not wanting his son to become a miner, set out with his kids and a cart heading west. when he got here, he found it pretty and with potential, and after settling his teenage son and daughter here, he died. maybe a few months later. this is always spoken of in my family as a heroic act.

[get the red out]

15. My Grandfather talked about this often

Though he had worked in the mines in Van Lear, Ky. I was born in Paintsville :D

[tularetom]

3. And now 36 years later the children of these miners are attending Sean Hannity events

And supporting balls to the wall extraction of coal. When the coal is gone the jobs will go with it. And it ain't ever coming back.

[Thothmes]

14. Bet we will be mining coal a long time after the last oil well

has gone dry. thats provided it is still legal or economically realistic to mine it. Remember the meme of modern Energy programs is to end the use of coal.

[underpants]

4. Mountain folk are tough

Blair mountain is another example

[create.peace]

5. it's available through netlfix or it was when we watched it! nt

[Bozita]

9. You can feel the sweat, grit, tears and pains of the entire community in that documentary.

Why isn't that film on teevee screens every Labor Day?

[ET Awful]

10. They say in Harlan County, there are no neutrals there, you'll either be a union man

or a thug for J. H. Blair. . ..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iAIM02kv0g

[ThomWV]

11. It is moving

I have seen it on IFC two or three times in the last year or so. I have a lot of interest in this subject, being a transplanted resident of coal fields to the north of those. There is a lot less mining in this part of the country now than there was even 20 years ago but down in what we (in West Virginia) call the southern coal fields you find the environmental atrocity that is Mountain Top Removal in full swing. At any rate as a transplant I became interested in the history of this state and you can not approach that subject without reference to King Coal.

This isn't the place for the discussion but the history of this region really intrigues me. I was born in DC and lived in Maryland, Ohio (to a small extent), and Florida when growing up. As a school kid I was taught the history of my home state, so I was familiar with the early years of those three states. Maryland and Florida shared the history of colonization and that was the fuzzy frame in which I saw the country. This place has no history of colonization though, its different. We were first and foremost a place to get got across, no place to live. There was good reason for that, this is a hard place for people to live. You can not farm here worth mentioning, there's no soil for it and dam little flat land either. You can't raise animals profitably either, other than in a few mountain valleys. Prior to the clearing of land there was precious little wild game - a lot less than there is today, and with much better land freely available to the west of the Ohio River there was really no reason for anyone to settle here. And they didn't. A few roads got migrants across the mountains and on their way to the mid west in short order, the first of which was in fact the first National Road. Local lore will tell you that this was shared indian hunting ground, but even that overplays it. There were relatively few people living anywhere in the space west of the eastern face of the Allegheny Mountains to the Ohio River even before the settlers came. Some strayed and stayed along the way, but not many - this was essentially barren soil for men until the coming of industry and the need for coal. The miners were shipped in from everywhere, but eastern europe (and Whales) had been home to many of them. They came down the valleys through Pennsylvania and then overland into the bowels of western Virginia, what would become West Virginia, and eastern Kentucky where they were exploited like cattle. And there you have it until the Union movement in the early 1920's and the bloody struggles that followed.

[democrat2thecore]

12. Netflix has it - it is definitely a MUST-SEE!

They also have 'Harlan County War' which is a dramatic portrayal of the events. It's very pro-labor as well and fairly well-done. But every progressive should see Barbara Koppel's documentary, 'Harlan County, USA'.

[bridgit]

13. yep rec5

:kick:

[michreject]

16. My Mother was born in Harlan Cty Ky.

My Garndaddy worked in the coal mine and was the Cty. Sheriff. He died of black lung in 62. After he died, my Grandmother moved to the big city, Middlesboro, Ky. Full of spit and vinegar, she was. She didn't know how to read or write. She bought me my first bicycle which wasn't a good thing living in those mountains.

I do miss her.