At the peak of the first strike, 5,800 miners were idle and only 900 working. Todd Melby: If I remember correctly, one of the very close opening shots is the miner going into the coal mine on a horizontal conveyor belt. They had invited executives from Duke Power and Eastover Mining to meet with them, but they refused. Braden, M. (1973, November, 09). Welcome to Beba's world: we're all just visiting. On 24 August 1974 a mine supervisor named Billy C. Bruner shot and killed a 23-year-old striker, Lawrence D. Jones. Youll either be a union man or a thug for J. H. Blair Some good doc pro, @marriska.fernandes moderates the Q&A for VOICES O, Director Mike McKinlay talks PART OF THE PACK at #, Pamela Anderson with her son/ producer Brandon Lee, Happy #Caturday! Murdered while on a picket line in Harlan County KY, After his death an agreement was signed between the miners and the union! IN Bill Rogge . Whenever somebody refers to the readers of a blog as "you people", you can bet there's a barrel full of fish coming next. Todd Melby: I want to ask you also about opening shots and closing shots and the importance of them. But he didn't come home that night. I didnt feel anything. The 2000 television movie Harlan County War starred Holly Hunter. -What happened? Barbara Kopple: No, I never thought about it costing. The Most Famous Person Born in Harlan, Kentucky is Nick Lachey. With documentaries, you never really know what youre going to get. Barbara Kopple: I dont think I was brave, I think I was just young and when youre young, youre invincible. The closing shot of Harlan County is people coming out of the coal mines. Billy Carroll Bruner, 39, a foreman at the Eastover mine, was wounded in the shootout and charged with the killing.Mr. Bobby Simpson, 79, has been blind for more than a half-century, but still managed to shovel coal. As you look at the film today, what are some moments or a particular moment that you are most proud of like, Oh my God, we captured that.. On May 5, 1931 the pot boiled over; in Harlan County Kentucky, heavily armed deputies and company men, called "gun thugs" by miners, confronted disgruntled union men on a road near Evarts. There are no longer any unionized mines in Kentucky, but Harlans miners are currently continuing the regions legacy of labor struggles against wealthy and powerful coal corporations: they are blocking the coal trains from leaving a mine that laid them off. "The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" - Fiddlin' John Carson (Okeh 4890) (1923) 2. What happened to Lawrence Jones wife Harlan County? Before long, most of the remaining workforce had gone on strike in solidarity. That was the morning that everybody had guns. . The miners revival, led by the UMWA, came in the wake of Franklin Roosevelts election in 1933 and in their belief that only their union might save them. [11] As national political support for the NIRA dwindled, capital gained the upper hand, and when the United States Supreme Court struck down the legislation's pro-union National Recovery Administration portion, shops with union presence in Harlan dwindled from eighteen to one. Only late in 1939 did intransigent Harlan coal masters reluctantly sign on with the union. A striking coal miner was in critical condition last night in Harlan County, Ky., after being struck in the head by a shotgun blast. The miners lay in ambush for cars delivering materials to strikebreakers and shot at them. It was the latest violent incident in Harlan County, long a scene of labor unrest. The incidents involved coal miners and union organizers on one side, and coal firms and law enforcement officials. Sheriff Blair was voted out of office in 1933 and died in 1934, replaced by T. R. Middleton, a candidate who ran on a pro-union platform. Stellar Skarsgard plays Warren Jacopovich, UMWA organizer. The strikers were not themselves entirely nonviolent. </p> <p>Buy Gift Cards. Liam Lacey is a freelance writer for Original-Cin.ca and POV, Canadas premiere magazine about documentaries and independent films. I worked on other people's films doing sound and editing, but . Women took over the picket lines. Some women in the BWC stabbed a police officers after he had dragged one of them away from the picket line. 3. Several members stabbed a local sheriff when he dragged a woman violently off the road on 28 February 1974. Harlan miners started to organize in the 1920s, a struggle that culminated in a long and violent strike in 1931. Subscribe today and get a yearlong print and digital subscription. Songwriter Florence Reece reported, Sheriff J. H. Blair and his men came to our house in search of Sam that's my husband he was one of the union leaders. Todd Melby: The first time that you interacted with the gun thug who is the barrel-chested guy in a pickup truck. Billy C. Bruner We Be Here When Morning Comes: Bryan Woolley 9. The greatness lies in its enduring emotional power. Before its conclusion, an unknown number of miners, deputies and bosses would be killed, state and federal troops would occupy the county more than half a dozen times, two acclaimed folk singers would emerge, union membership would oscillate wildly and workers in the nation's most anti-labor coal county would ultimately be represented by a union. Santos, a New York Republican notorious for falsifying his resume, education, religion and family history, introduced legislation Tuesday that would increase the deduction, known as SALT, to $50,000. Just imagine how many of today's leaders of leftwing movements would be in next 20 years. Lastly, of course, is the gruesome slaying of striking miner Lawrence Jones by scab Bill Bruner. About 200 miners, some of whom walked off their jobs in support of the Brookside miners, will be affected by the outcome of the election. Power Company of Charlotte N. C., contained these major points: Eastover agreed to sign the 1971 wage pact of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association which is in force at 1,200 mines. I think that was the most important film in my life because I learned what life and death was all about. I said, Why didnt you tell me? They said, Because we didnt want you to leave. I said, I wouldnt have left!. In "Bloody Harlan" in the 1930s, miners and union organizers faced bayonets and many died fighting the coal bosses, helping to fuel a national wave of organizing. As documented in the film "Harlan County, USA," the strike was hotly contested, with the company bringing in "gun thugs" from outside that tried to hide their firearms from the cameras documenting the strike. It is so cinematic. The hardest thing was getting funding to keep going. LANGUAGES SPOKEN English. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. https://povmagazine.com/kingston-canadian-film-festival-announces-2023-line-up/. The Global NonviolentAction Database is aproject of Swarthmore College, including the Peace and Conflict Studies Program, the Peace Collection, and the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, it had collapsed. PROVIDER RATINGS. A UMWA organizer who welcomed us displayed a revolver on the dashboard of his car. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. I heard about Harlan County Miners for Democracy. Persons per household, 2017-2021. In the southern Appalachian fields stretching from West Virginia to Alabama, there was no union at all. This was partially successful until County Judge F. Byrd Hogg, a mine owner himself, issued an injunction against the miners allowing only 3 people to picket at each of the two entrances to the mine. Barbara Kopple: No. Then theres the problem of Kopples approach to the material, a hybrid of advocacy and observation that makes the film seem as though its making up its rules for reality as it goes along. An open shop allows union membership but does not mandate it. As we learn from the making of feature on the 2006 Criterion 30th anniversaryDVD, occasionally, as in a scene where a miner and a New York cop compare jobs, the films subject wore a hidden wireless microphone. Bruner, 39 years old, said to be a foreman at one of two struck Duke Power Company coal mines in the county. -Got shot in the damn head. In response to the violence, the Kentucky National Guard was called in. Barbara Kopple: Yes, and he would hire the scabs that would cross the picket line who were trying to break up having a union. The incidents involved coal miners and union organizers on one side and coal firms and law enforcement officials on the other. Which side are you on? 6 Where is the safest place to live in Kentucky? Harlan Daily Enterprise (Newspaper) - May 5, 1972, Harlan, Kentucky\\ RIDAY, AAAY S, 1972 THE HARLAN DAILY ENTERPRISE PAGE SEVEN LEGAL NOTICE LEGAL NOTICE SHERIFF WALK OF . It does not store any personal data. He is editor of E.P. I guess also because I was doing sound. For the episode of Justified, see, Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, Murder of workers in labor disputes in the United States, List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States, "Hall of Fame: Power of Arts & Creative Expression -", "TROOPS WATCH AS HARLAN VOTES: Turbulent County Ballots Heavily", "TROOPS AGAIN MOVE ON HARLAN COUNTY: Occupation of Kentucky Area", "Prepare to Meet Thy God: War in the Harlan County Coal Fields", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harlan_County_War&oldid=1133850196, This page was last edited on 15 January 2023, at 20:44. Within 3 weeks a tentative deal had been reached between the UMW and the majority of mine owners. -A goddamn scab. Bill worked for Sysco and retired after 30+ years as a truck driver. The union agreed not to authorize a strike against Eastover between now and the time a new contract agreement is reached. In Episode 2 of the The Drunk Projectionist, producer and host Todd Melby interviewed Barbara Kopple about Harlan County USA, her impressive first film.The 1976 documentary won an Academy Award. Barbara Kopple: I never felt that. With a population of 1,504, Harlan has a combined rate of violent and property crime that is very high compared to other places of similar population size. The Park County Sheriff's Office, . After Arnold Miller won, I wanted to see if he would keep his promise. Computer and Internet Use. Union members were beaten, their families terrorized. Women of the community responded to Judge Bogg's injunction. Barbara Kopple: I guess that day was the scariest moment because I went up to one of the organizers and said, Do you think theyre going to shoot at us today?. POV is Canada's premiere documentary magazine in print and online. Nonviolent picketing comes to Harlan mine. (Robert Gumpert / Appalshop Archive). I just felt honored to be able to photograph it. Though most workers felt disillusioned with organized labor, the NMU's radical ideology gained some support, ten local lodges sprang up before the Harlan County NMU was officially chartered. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". Survivors include his son, Scott Alan (Cortney) Bruner and . Still, there is a spirit that lives in Harlan, along with the ghosts of battles past. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. All Rights Reserved. Harlan County is well known in folk and country music, having produced many prominent musicians. This contract is a message to every nonunion coal operator in the land that coalmining families have had their fill of deathtrap mines, starvation wages and meager benefits in return for their labor.. Several men were arrested for violating the injunction and were sentenced to three months in prison. Households with a computer, percent, 2017-2021. Barbara Kopple: A 10-minute reel of 16-millimeter film. They had invited executives from Duke Power and Eastover Mining to meet with them, but they refused. to an old Baptist hymn, 'Lay the Lily Low'. What this means is that Harlan County as a political unit and cultural construct is that old; however, the history of modern Harlan County begins with the movement of people of European origin along with, in many instances, the people of African origin whom they held enslaved into southwest Virginia . He was a tough character who had had a lot of suffering of his own, which I didnt know about being young and foolish. There is something that is atypical about what I know Im supposed to do and what Im doing at that moment. The strikers received some of the highest strike benefits ever paid by the U.M.W.$80 a week for a single man, $90 for a couple and $100 for a family. Check out American Dream, which also won an Oscar, if you haven't (but I imagine you have!). The replacement workers often drove through the picket lines, injuring the striking workers. She talks about the women being armed with sticks, mace . That made me think a lot too. His Freedom House biography says he was in UMW from 1972 to 1976 and later Special Assistant and Speechwriter to the Vice President of USA, 1977 to 1981. Walter Russell Mead is another. The company also agreed to abide by any agreement reached between the union and the association in their new contract for 1974. Days Of Darkness-- John Ed Pearce 5. How many miners died in the Harlan County War? Also, in retrospect, we know that the film crew, embedded with the miners, were a shield against worse violence, though that role is never reflected upon in the film. You have to be on one side or the other. [4]:67 Florence Reece, wife of organizer Sam Reece, wrote the labor standard "Which Side Are You On?". The BWC had nearly 100 members. Box 14*. Segment Synopsis: Lois Scott continues her conversation from her previous interview. . Bill Harlan: Well, let's look back 100 years: Phylloxera at the end of the 19th century, the great earthquake in SF when a lot of wines were lost in the warehouses. Mr. Bruner was shot by someone in the crowd when he tried to leave. During the strike, there were scattered arrests at the picket sitesabout 40, according to the policeand both strikers and company officials reported that shots had been fired into their homes and company buildings. They ransacked the whole house and then kept watch outside, waiting to shoot Sam down when he came back. POV engages filmmakers and film lovers in conversations about the art of non-fiction. Why was Harlan County in the depression known as Bloody Harlan? [10] The Kentucky National Guard was once again called in on December 8, 1934, requested by UMW organizers who had been threatened by bosses and deputies. In June of 1973, workers at the Brookside coal mine in Harlan County, Kentucky voted 113-55 to replace their membership in the Southern Labor Union (SLU) and join the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) union. Some people say, 'I don't take sides I'm neutral.' I went in front of him thinking I was so strong and invincible and you hear me get knocked over. The scabs were coming at the cameraman first. Nearly 30 percent of county residents live in poverty, and most households earn less than $30,000 a year. I didnt know it. Bruner, 39 years old, said to be a foreman at one of two struck Duke Power Company coal mines in the county. You all look the same when you came out.. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. 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