No, this isn’t a diary about Jeff Foxworthy jokes. A couple of weeks ago I was watching a show called Hillbillies on the History Channel. The show was about the development of Appalachian mountain culture aka Hillbillies. Among the topics covered was the origin of the term redneck. I was surprised about the origins of the term and I no longer think of it as a derogatory epithet.
This diary is cross-posted at NION
Most people in the U.S. tend to think that the only war fought on American soil was the Civil War. I have to admit that I was under this impression myself until recently. But that is not entirely true. If you live in Virginia or are familiar with the history of coal mining you may have heard of what is sometimes called the Red Neck War.
"In 1921, some 10,000 West Virginia coal workers, outraged over years of brutality and lawless exploitation, picked up their rifles and marched against their tormentors, the powerful mine owners who ruled their corrupt state. For ten days the miners fought a pitched battle against an opposing legion of deputies, state police, and makeshift militia.
Only the declaration of martial law and the intervention of a federal expeditionary force, spearheaded by a bomber squadron commanded by General Billy Mitchell, ended this undeclared civil war and forced the miners to throw down their arms.......
By early May of 1920, union operatives had formed fourteen locals and signed up more than 3,000 of Mingo County's 4,000 miners. At this time, West Virginia was the last bastion of non-union mines; in most of the other states mine workers had organized, and John L. Lewis's United Mine Workers made up the nation's largest and strongest union. The UMW was determined to enroll all of the mine workers.
West Virginia operators, however, did all they could to oppose unionism. The main problem was that at this time mine workers were forced to sign legally binding "yellow-dog" contracts (upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court) under which miners pledged not to join a union under penalty of forfeiting their jobs as well as the right to live in company housing.
The trouble started when Baldwin-Felts agents (known to miners as gun thugs), working with for the Stone Mountain Mining company, attempted to evict union miners and their families from company owned housing within the town jurisdiction of Matewan. They, however, lacked the necessary court order. The Baldwin-Felts Agency (which had a nationwide reputation for union busting) policed the mining camps, collected rents, guarded the mines and the payroll, evicted tenants from company housing, and kept out "undesirables" (prostitutes and union men). They also did undercover work posing as ordinary miners or workers and reported back to the agency on the plans and remarks of their co-workers who appeared sympathetic to the union. Nevertheless, these private "detectives" (like the better known Pinkertons) had no right to assume the authority of duly appointed law enforcement agents, but they assumed it anyway, and were despised for doing it.
The attempted Matewan evictions led to a shooting incident between town officials, Mayor Testerman and Police Chief SD Hafted, together with a number of armed miners who had been deputized, and a number of Baldwin-Felts agents. The incident, which lasted just twenty minutes, involved over 100 rounds fired, and ended with two miners and seven detectives dead including Albert and Lee Felts. Mayor Testerman was mortally wounded and died the next day."
The Matewan Massacre as it came to be was not the first nor the largest confrontation to come out of the West Virginia Mine War.
"In August of 1921, as Hatfield went to Welch, the county seat of McDowell County, to appear for reasons unrelated to the incident a Baldwin and Felts agent assassinated him in broad daylight on the courthouse steps. The unwillingness of the civil authorities to bring Hatfield’s killer to justice created an impression in the minds of coal miners in many parts of the country that American law and justice no longer existed in those counties.
Thousands of miners gathered in Marmet, a village on the Kanawha River ten miles upstream from Charleston, later that month. At that time, the main roads and railways from the Charleston area to Logan and Mingo Counties departed into the hills from that point. Labor leaders such as "Mother" Jones begged and even lied to the miners to prevent violence. However, the miners arrived and organized along military lines (many of them having served in the First World War.) They created a system of communication and passwords that no participant ever revealed, even to historians many decades later. In addition, to distinguish themselves from people uninvolved they wore red kerchiefs around their necks (perhaps providing the origin of the word "redneck.") They also assembled commissary wagons and brought along clergy and medical personnel.
No one has ever ascertained the total number of people involved. Some estimates go as low as 5,000, others as high as 15,000. Whatever their number, they presented a fearsome sight to the state and local authorities who predictably appealed to President Warren G. Harding for assistance. Governor Ephraim Morgan even hinted at possible Bolshevik influence amongst their ranks. Harding hesitated, claiming that the United States Army could not function as a police force and that the state should be able to contain the problem. Morgan imposed martial law and directed local vigilance committees and state police to enforce it; these organizations bore a tremendous bias against the unionizers and this prevented the miners from taking any confidence in state measures."
The culmination of this march was the Battle of Blair Mountain. A confrontation where the forces of the mine owners heralded in an event of historical proportions. They were the first ones to use airpower against American civilians. It seems they had hired a pilot to fly over the miners and drop homemade bombs on them. A move that would come back to bite them in the ass when they tried to have the miners brought up on charges of treason after the battle. It seems that when the jurors found out about the mine owners protests of innocence in the provoking of the miners rang hollow.
"During the ensuing conflict, thousands of rounds were fired by both sides using all kinds of small arms including machine guns. The precise death toll was never established, but estimates range from fewer than twenty to more than fifty. Both miners and defenders were well armed and had plenty of ammunition which they fired freely. The roar of the guns became a steady pounding in the ears of the men on both sides: you could hear it for miles along the river.
Eventually, the federal troops arrived. The miners were optimistic, believing that their grievances would be vindicated. Governor Morgan and his allies, the coal mine operators, expected that the arrival of the troops would end their troubles with the union. The governor was right; the officer class was more than sympathetic to the owner's interests with which they identified and saw the miners simply as mutineers.
Although clearly disappointed with the turn of events, the miners were not of a mind to war against the federal government and its military which proved to be unsympathetic to their interests. The army of workers, some ten thousand strong, simply quit the battle and went home. Once the war was over, the federal government opted out.
Federal prosecution would have been redundant since the State of West Virginia was coming down on the union rebels with all its might and authority. Led by a vengeful governor Morgan, determined to punish the rebel leaders by choosing to charge them with the most serious crimes of murder and treason, which it turned out were easier to bring than to make stick, the focus shifted to the courts. No one could deny that the insurgents had committed violent acts and rejected lawful authority, but the claim that they were trying to make war against the state distorted reality.
The aftermath of the "war" included a number of trials for treason conducted by biased judges and corrupt prosecutors; however, the crime of treason was hard to prove, and nearly all of the defendants were exonerated, but one lowly insurgent, Walter Allen—a minor figure in the rebel army—was convicted of the charge even though nothing more damaging than that he had been seen "with the armed forces" in Logan County and "had been carrying a gun" was presented. Out on bail while awaiting an appeal, Allen simply disappeared and was never seen again. The state dropped the treason charges against the other twenty men."
As with many such confrontations throughout American history, while the miners didn't loose the war itself. They did "loose the peace". The unions won no concessions from the miner owners and it wasn't untill F.D.R. coame into office a decade later that they were free to unionize. But one thing did come from this this event the term "redneck'. Yes it's meaning has changed a bit over the years but it's still with us none the less.
Personally I'd like to see it regain what I see as it's original meaning. Which is some one who is willing to do what it takes to promote and support the one institution working people have, that does it's best to make sure they are treated fairly in the workplace, the unions.For all their faults unions are the one organization which has consistently put the welfare of the working class first in their efforts. Because they are made up of the working class and who is better suited to look after their interests. So the next time I hear some one called a redneck or if I'm called one myself, I know that for myself I will remeber the men and women who stood up for themselves and their families on Blair Mountain and hold my head up high and remind them what it means.
Issues of class and labor seem to pop up quite a bit on Daily Kos as sidebars or as impacting other topics in important ways, but they don't get their own diaries as often as they perhaps should. Yet work and class have enormous relevance in American life. Almost all of us must work for a living. Most of us who work owe a great debt to organized labor - even if we are not ourselves members of unions, we benefit from the advances unions have made over the years, in safety conditions, limited hours and overtime pay, benefits, child labor laws. And while a shrinking percentage of American workers are represented by unions, not only do union members earn more than their nonunion counterparts, but nonunion workers in highly unionized industries and areas benefit from employer competition for workers, leading to better pay and conditions. Class issues, too, apart from the question of organized labor, are central in many of the political struggles of the day. From bankruptcy legislation to the minimum wage to student loans, legislation affects people differently based on how much they make, what kind of access to power and support they have.
With this series we aim to develop an ongoing discussion around class and labor issues. Such ongoing discussions have emerged in the Feminisms and Kossacks Under 35 series, and, given the frequent requests for more (and more commented-in) diaries on these issues, we hope this series will accomplish the same. Entries will be posted every Tuesday night between 8 and 9pm eastern. If you are interested in a writing a diary for this series, please email Elise or MissLaura and we will arrange for you to be put on the schedule.
P.S. I apologize if this diary seems to be more cut and paste usual but my colitus is acting up and I'm not feeling that well. Also if you're interested in preserveing Blair Mountain from strip mining and having it preserved as a historical sight there's a great article at Appalacian Voices Blair Mountain: New Archeological Data Heats up Mine Wars that you might find interesting