Bloody Harlan

Deep in the hills of eastern Kentucky, several thousand men worked in the coal mines, breathing in humid air dense with coal dust day in and day out throughout the 1930s. In Harlan, coal mining had been the backbone of the town’s economy for years. But when the companies that operated these mines continuously thwarted workers’ attempts to join a union and fight for better pay and safer working conditions, local miners began to strike.

From there, things became violent, leading to a decade-long conflict, now known as the Harlan County War, from 1931 onward. Even today, the town holds the nickname “Bloody Harlan” in reference to these labor strikes and the ones that followed, such as the Brookside Mine strike in 1973.

The case for the strike

Harlan county, which includes the towns of Harlan and Evarts, among others, produced about 15.2 million tons of coal annually in the late 1920s, making up a quarter of the entire state’s production at the time. The area was a popular location for mining companies not only because of its natural resources, but also because of its lack of union presence, especially compared with that of other regions of the U.S. Because of this, workers in the town faced poorer conditions than miners elsewhere. Harlan miners were paid 42 percent less in 1922 than average miners in Illinois, for example, a state where in some regions 90 percent of miners were unionized.

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The economic downturn of the Great Depression only further incentivized the exploitation of coal miners through continued low pay and dangerous conditions, such as gas explosions, rock collapses, machinery malfunctions, and constant inhalation of coal dust—which led many to develop black lung, or coal-workers’ pneumoconiosis. On top of that, many coal companies extensively regulated the personal lives of miners, agreeing to provide some measure of social security as long as miners did not participate in drunkenness, prostitution, or unionization. John Hevener, who wrote Which Side Are You On? The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931–39 (1978), which chronicles the 1930s struggle, went so far as to say, “The operators fancied themselves as benevolent patriarchs caring for their children.”

In February 1931, after coal operators announced an additional 10 percent wage decrease (despite workers’ hours already being cut significantly), Harlan responded. Coal miners in the town officially went on strike, with support growing throughout the month as more and more men gathered between Black Mountain and the railroads running to coal camps in Harlan. The strike brought conflict, and ultimately the contention between the miners and the companies that profited from their work persisted throughout the rest of the decade.

During this time, women in the area ran soup kitchens to support striking miners and their families, though their involvement in the fight did not stop there. In 1931 the labor anthem “Which Side Are You On?”—written by Florence Reece, the wife of a union organizer—quickly became a rallying cry for the miners of Harlan as they fought for fair treatment and the ability to unionize, specifically with the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), which was founded in 1890.

Pushback from coal companies

As the strike grew, Harlan’s income shrank. The local government asked the American Red Cross to aid the starving miners, but the organization declined to help in the name of neutrality.

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Meanwhile, the coal companies hired workers to replace those on strike. On May 5, 1931, about 75 striking miners ambushed vehicles that were sent by Harlan sheriff J.H. Blair to bring supplies to the replacement workers. Gunfire broke out, leaving three of the mine guards and one striker dead. Eight miners were ultimately convicted for conspiracy to commit murder and received life sentences for their part in the violence, later called the Battle of Evarts.

Retaliation against the strikers was swift and aggressive. Blair sent deputies to search for miners in possession of guns, but the miners themselves were wary of the people they called “gun thugs,” i.e., the deputies and other armed individuals sent by coal companies and local authorities to break the strike. In Harlan, which had a population of about 4,000 at the time, the unrest reverberated through every inch of the small town.

Ultimately the Battle of Evarts led some to link the unionization efforts to violence. Conflict continued throughout the decade, bringing with it more deaths, walkouts, and bombings. By the end of the Harlan County War, at least 13 miners and 5 mine guards had lost their lives.

The election of Franklin D. Roosevelt brought in the era of the New Deal, the Roosevelt administration’s domestic program implemented between 1933 and 1939 that ushered in economic recovery after the Great Depression. The Wagner Act, officially the National Labor Relations Act, was passed in 1935 as part of these efforts. This legislation gave most workers the right to form and join unions and obligated employers to allow collective bargaining.

The Wagner Act prompted investigations into the labor practices and abuses of corporations, and public sentiment grew to support the efforts of the striking miners. In 1937 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Wagner Act, which gave the National Labor Relations Board the ability to enforce it.

At the end of the decade, Harlan’s mine workers finally unionized under the UMWA, which at that time had 400,000 members.

A legacy of labor disputes: the 1970s strike

The history of efforts by Harlan’s miners to improve their working conditions did not end in the 1930s. In 1973 workers at the Brookside Mine in Harlan county voted to revoke their membership with the Southern Labor Union (SLU) in favor of the UMWA, as they thought that the SLU was advocating more for coal companies than for miners. The strikers also sought to create a safety committee and improve their medical benefits.

The company that owned Brookside, Eastover Coal Company, a subsidiary of Duke Power Company, told workers that it would not sign the new contracts, which would have created a UMWA branch at the mine. As a result of failed negotiations, 180 workers went on strike in late July—one that would last 13 months and bring 90 arrests and 40 acts of violence toward miners.

The Brookside strike is chronicled in Barbara Kopple’s documentary Harlan County U.S.A. (1976). Prominent in both Kopple’s film and the strike are the wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters of the striking workers who worked tirelessly, often enduring violence or threats, to support the strike.

The death of a young miner, Lawrence Jones, who was shot by a mine supervisor, gained national attention and was ultimately a critical juncture in the strike. Pressure on the coal company increased, leading Eastover to offer the miners a contract on August 29, 1974—just five days after Jones’s death.

The contract won Brookside’s miners unionization under UMWA, which included provisions for safety committees and better pay, and Eastover agreed to rehire striking miners and drop all charges against them in court.

Remembering the mines: the impact of coal on Harlan

Although the coal industry has declined from the 1980s through the early 21st century, the history of mining has profoundly shaped the county. Its legacy can be seen in official memorials, such as the Kentucky Coal Museum, and in the names of local shops, such as the Harlan coffee shop Moonbow Tipple (tipple refers to a structure where coal is cleaned and loaded). Multimillion-dollar grants have also been used to preserve some of the most historical locations in the area, such as the Portal 31 mine site, which is open for tourists to explore the story of mining in Harlan.