Cross-posted from Infoshop.org
Hello friends,
We’re writing you from Blair, West Virginia, in the heart of the coalfields. We are in Logan County, which is the belly of the beast for the coal industry. We fight directly in the trenches against the corporate fascists who have ruled central Appalachia for 120 years. Our heritage draws on the Battle of Blair Mountain, where in 1921 ten-thousand miners fought a coal-operator backed army. They fought for five days, and were breaking through the defensive lines when federal troops were called in to stop the war.
Now, Blair Mountain, where the largest open class war in US history took place, is threatened with obliteration by the coal companies. They are trying to do mountaintop removal coal extraction, which blasts our mountains, destroys our communities, and poisons us. We are fighting back. As our communities are being destroyed, we are organizing bottom-up. We engage in direct action. We will continue to fight to save our lives, homes and communities.
But we need your help. We’ll do what we can on the ground, but spread it far and wide that these two companies are trying to destroy the town of Blair and the Blair Mountain battlefield:
We are limited in our resources here, but we have a long tradition and knowledge of fighting back, and that is in our own way. We figure that you people out there will know other ways to help us fight these coal companies. Maybe you’ll know people to spread this on to. No compromise, no defeat.
Help us fight Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources. These are the two biggest coal companies in the US. They have control of our state government, they are true fascists. Help us resist and rebuild. Pass this on. It’ll be greatly appreciated.
From the holler to the hood — SOLIDARITY,
Sid Hatfield