Hello folks. I'm an avid history buff, and I love to write. So I decided to pen an essay on one of the most interesting labor-related pieces of US history, Bloody Harlan: AKA The Harlan County War, an important part of a much larger, countrywide series of conflicts known as The Coal Wars which took place largely from 1890 to 1930. This series of skirmishes and strikes, lasting from early 1931 into 1939 and taking place in Harlan County, Kentucky, began because of the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association’s (HCCOA) decision to cut miners' wages by 10%. The miners, impoverished due to their already low pay (this coming in the form of company scrip, room, and board), decided enough was enough, and some of them began to join with the United Mine Workers of America, in an attempt to unionize. The company took issue with the unionizing of its workers and began firing any known members of the union and evicting them from their company-owned homes. Not long after the company began firing union members, miners began to go on strike in droves.

At the height of the first strike, over 5,800 miners were on strike, with only about 900 strikebreakers, also known as Scabs, working the mines. During this period, the strikebreakers were under protection by “mine guards”, deputized private guards working under Sheriff John Henry Blair, an arguably corrupt, inarguably nasty man whose allegiance lay with the company. Minor skirmishes, in which striking workers and law enforcement officers exchanged shots, were a regular occurrence. The bloodiest of these conflicts by far was The Battle of Evarts. On the morning of May 5th, 1931, striking miners lay in wait near the Evarts railroad, ready to ambush the motorcade that was carrying goods to the strikebreakers working the mines. The motorcade was made up of three cars, with a sheriff's deputy in each. As the motorcade approached the concealed strikers, a single shot rang out. As with many of these types of conflicts, both sides blamed the other for firing first. What followed was pure chaos. Approximately 1,000 shots were fired, and the three deputies were killed along with a single striker. This incident caused strikes to become larger and more common in the Harlan County area. After The Battle of Evarts, the Kentucky National Guard was called in. The strikers thought they had come to protect them, but instead, they had come to replace the deputized guards and protect the strikebreakers and break the pickets.

On May 24th, the KNG tear-gassed a large union rally, and Sheriff J. H. Blair rescinded the constitutional right to assemble in Harlan County. The strikes in Harlan County lasted about a month and a half after the battle, with the majority of workers back to the mines on June 17th and union membership dropped significantly, due to the Coal Companies refusing to offer concessions and the Red Cross offering no aid to the starving strikers on the grounds of neutrality. Eight of the strikers were found guilty of conspiracy to murder due to the action on May 5th, and all eight received life sentences.

A few organizations made a play for Harlan County, including the openly communist National Miners’ Union. The NMU was a small success, opening soup kitchens around the county and convincing some of the miners to join up, but the majority were disillusioned with workers' unions by that point. The NMU organized strikes and pickets in multiple counties throughout Kentucky, and while some were minor successes, their attempts in Harlan County were utter failures. The final straw was when some labor organizers, most being clergy members, learned of the NMU’s leaders' animosity towards religion, and denounced the organization. In the wake of this, the organizer of the Young Communist League, Harry Sims, was killed in Harlan County. Due to the clergymen's denouncement of the NMU, already dwindling membership became near nonexistent which forced them to close their soup kitchens due to lack of funding, and the Red Cross stepped in to feed and assist the miners that had been blacklisted from working the mines due to previous or current union membership.

On June 16th, 1933, the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) came into effect, which, among other things, outlawed workplace discrimination based on union membership. After this, over half of Harlan County’s coal mines (the ones owned by the HCCOA) were operated as “open shops” (a place of work that allows union membership but does not require it) from October 27th, 1933 to March 31st, 1935. Despite headway by the unions, the battle for Harlan County between labor and capital continued in earnest. 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. 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. The troops promptly escorted the union men to the county line. 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.

The NIRA was not very effective in Harlan County, whereas the Wagner Act of 1935 was very effective in terms of hindering the operations of the county's mine operators. The new law outlawed several tactics used by coal companies, including yellow-dog contracts, company unions, and discrimination based on union activity. While coal companies across the nation responded positively to the legislation in 1935, Harlan remained resistant to federal involvement. On July 7, a group of deputies became angry at a public celebration of the Wagner Act and began beating several miners.

1935 was a turbulent year even for Harlan; troops were deployed three times to maintain order in the county. On September 29, troops were dispatched to the Harlan County War for the first time. The governor referred to the beatings and harassment of the miners at the hands of the mine guards as "the worst reign of terror in the history of the county" was made. He stood up for and protected the miners despite the fact that a bomb had killed Harlan County Attorney Elmon Middleton several weeks earlier.

This formative, tumultuous period of our history, colloquially known as the Coal Wars, lasted from 1890 well into the 1930s, officially coming to an end in Harlan County in 1939. This long, bloody series of strikes and conflicts helped to show the importance of workers’ unions, labor laws, and fair treatment in the workplace. Thank y'all for reading and I hope you enjoyed!!

Sources:

Bloody Harlan, Paul F. Taylor

They Say In Harlan County, Alessandro Portelli

Which Side Are You On?: The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39, John W. Hevener

Harlan County War, Wikipedia

Remembering Bloody Harlan, Parallel Narratives

A Brief History of Harlan County, USA, Cal Winslow