Between The Lines - Chuck Keeney: March on Blair Mountain (Week Ending Aug. 19, 2011)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

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"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
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"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
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Recent March to Protect Blair Mountain in West Virginia Brought Coal Miners and Environmentalists Together

RealAudio MP3

Posted Aug. 10, 2011

Interview with Chuck Keeney, Blair Mountain, W.V. march organizer , conducted by Melinda Tuhus

In early June, over 500 people – locals and outside supporters – recreated the 1921 miners' march on Blair Mountain, a national historic site in West Virginia. Ninety years ago, the march demanded union rights and pitted thousands of armed miners against coal company security guards, county sheriffs, and ultimately, the U.S. Army. The goal of this year's march was to protect Blair Mountain from mountaintop removal coal extraction, end all mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia and promote local jobs and sustainable communities.

The struggle to end mountaintop removal coal mining has attracted prominent supporters, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and musicians Ashley Judd, Emmylou Harris and others. Many union members joined the weeklong march on Blair Mountain. However, the United Mine Workers Union withdrew its early endorsement of the march because, while it favors protection of Blair Mountain, it does not oppose mountain top removal coal extraction that provides local jobs.

Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus was on the march for three of the five days, and midway through the trek interviewed Chuck Keeney, one of the protest action’s organizers. He teaches Appalachian history at a local college and is the great-grandson of Frank Keeney, a leader of the United Mine Workers union that fought on Blair Mountain in 1921. Keeney talks about the lack of knowledge among many West Virginians about their own history, and how this year's march on Blair Mountain has brought miners and environmentalists together.

CHUCK KEENEY: I learned nothing about Blair Mountain or the West Virginia mine wars in school. I learned it – like much of the real history of Appalachia that you learn – it's a place without a formal history. It's a place where you learn it at family reunions, at church potluck dinners, at Christmastime; you learn it from songs, from poetry. You don't learn it in school because what you get in school is largely dictated by big industry.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Has that changed at all, or is that still true?

CHUCK KEENEY: CK: It has changed very, very little. In the textbooks today there's a brief mention of "unrest in the coal fields" in the early part of the 20th century.

BETWEEN THE LINES: So, how have things gone so far, in terms of what you expected, what you hoped?

CHUCK KEENEY: You know what, things have gone better than I expected. We hit our obstacles – a lot of them have been small little obstacles – but there's been no violence towards the marchers. This was something we were incredibly concerned about. I don't know if you've heard about the march they tried to do in 1999 in which people were assaulted. In fact, Ken Hechler, the former secretary of state, was beaten up and he was 84 at the time. He was beaten to a bloody pulp by a bunch of guys hired by the coal companies. So none of that has happened yet. And so we're very happy about that. Also, very happy about the media coverage. I went on a right-wing radio show and got to talk to them for 30 minutes and got them to say all my goals were reasonable by the end of the discussion. And the idea that I was able to do that was just pretty mind-blowing to me.

Of course, they've done a number of things, like the camp sites, the coal companies have used intimidation to shut down the campsites where we would have camped. They've also done a lot of small things. You know, we have to march on the outside of the white lines on the roads, for example. Well, the Department of Highways – and if you're on the march you can see this – where parts of the white line have been blacked out and then moved to the very edge of the roads to where the people can't even walk along the side of the road; they have to walk along the ditches. Just little things to make things difficult. We're having a rally at a baseball field at Blair Mountain on Saturday. One of the coal companies is trying to buy the baseball field to prevent us from having the rally there. You know, a lot of things like that. But it tells me that they're afraid of us. It tells us they fear the impact we may have.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Well, I've been on the march for two days, and I have to say... most motorists don't react at all, but of the ones who do, it's been much more positive than negative, I'd say at least four to one from what I've observed. Does that surprise you?

CHUCK KEENEY: It does in a way, but also it doesn't. We were able to effectively get our message out there that we're not completely anti-coal, you know. They can underground mine Blair Mountain and still preserve the entire site, and hire twice as many people. You know, there is a lot of discontent, growing discontent.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Massey, which has now been bought by Alpha Natural Resources, and another company, Arch Coal, both have options to blast on Blair Mountain. Has there been any change...that's your hope, right, you have to discourage them from doing that.

CHUCK KEENEY: Well, we have to get Blair Mountain put back on the list of historic places, which would [help] protect it, and there are other ways we can protect the site. The government can do that. I'm not holding my breath that the state government is going to do that [laughs], because the state government is very much on the side of the coal companies. But the federal government can do this; the federal government can declare this a national historic site and can protect it. So that's one of the reasons we are trying to do this, to get the attention of the nation so that the public can email the National Register of Historic Places, try to get our president to perhaps intervene at some point and save this national treasure. This is a history that very few people even know, and when we tell them about it they say, "What an amazing, unique story!" You know, this is where people laid the groundwork for an American middle class – for weekends, for 40-hour work weeks – and if you think labor organizations aren't important now, look at Wisconsin, look at Michigan, look at all the things that's happening. These issues are incredibly important and Blair Mountain is a place where people can rally to that, and see that labor is something that's vitally important to the economic prosperity of the U.S.

BETWEEN THE LINES: People on the march have some different points of view. I mean, some people think we have to stop coal mining totally – as soon as possible; it won't happen right away. And others say we need more underground coal mining, because it's more jobs, and we need the energy. So do you think people can co-exist with different points of view and still have the goals [of the march]?

CHUCK KEENEY: You know, we have co-existed. And the example that is most pertinent to me happened a couple weeks before the march. I was in Matewan – Matewan is the heart, the belly of the beast of coal country in West Virginia. I was giving a speech at a union local, with about 40 coal miners and their families, and then we had about 40 environmentalists there. And they were all eating hot dogs together, joking together, and we had a talk and a big open discussion, and afterward people came up to me and said, "This is the first time this has ever happened, that environmentalists and coal miners and union people were sitting under the same roof, talking things out, and that's what Blair Mountain is – not everybody's going to agree 100 percent, but Blair Mountain is a place where people who have these progressive views – environmentalists, labor unions, historic preservationists – can all come together. And if these groups don't find a way to come together, then they are going to separately be crushed. They have to find a way to work through their differences and come together, and Blair Mountain, I think, is a place in which that can happen.

Learn more about the opponents of mountaintop removal coal mining at www.rampscampaign.org.