We love our mountains. We love the beautiful mixed mesophytic forest that blankets their surface, the pristine headwaters that pull and tumble throughout them, and the majestic and diverse creatures that inhabit these hills and hollows. We love our mountains’ shape, are drawn in by their corporal topography, respecting their inherent values that in turn shape and color who we are as individuals and as a regional community.

But the Blair Mountain March proves that when it comes to mountaintop removal, there are no “environmentalists.” The Blair Mountain March makes clear, that to simply call this an “environmentalist” march is lazy. To call opposition to mountaintop removal an “environmentalist” position is inaccurate. There is a national coalition of opposition to mountaintop removal that consists of Democrats, Republicans, faith leaders, civil rights leaders, conservationists, union workers, economists, underground coal-miners, health care professionals, scientists, journalists, me, you, and just about everybody who understands the issue. Together we form a majority of citizens who oppose the permanent destruction – by a few – of a special, historic, ancient mountain which so many of us hold dear. This is much more significant than just trying to protect a few trees, or a stream, or even an ancient mountain. The March on Blair Mountain crystallizes a moment when a broader coalition of Appalachian citizens have come together organize ourselves into a bigger tent to protect ourselves from the abuses of an overzealous and arrogant coal company. We are working to protect each other.

This moment is yet another key turning point when the majority of the Appalachian people stand up against the few who would destroy what we hold dear. The proposed destruction of Blair Mountain is not just an attack on our environment, it is not just an attack on our economy, it is not just an attack on our history, it is not just an attack on our health, it is not just an attack on working men and women. This is an attack on us, our very selves, and the heritage of generations that binds us to our families and to each other.

That is why we have come together. Labor, citizens, “environmentalists,” remember this. We don’t march for the environment. We march for each other and for our future.

Please listen to the citizens who have joined the march, and take a minute to take action*.

* -even if it’s only for “the environment”. 🙂

Former miners describe why they are marching 50 miles to stop mountaintop removal and to save Blair Mountain.

We’ll be posting more as these come in.

Blair Mountain strikers were often referred to as “red necks” by the press, on account of the red scarves they wore around their necks to symbolize solidarity against the coal company police. Participants in the modern Blair March wear red scarves in memory.

A strong coalition of impacted residents, citizens opposed to strip-mining, conservationists, union members, historians, and progressive activists have come together to oppose the destruction of this historic mountain.

While what happened at Blair was historic in size, its important to remember that this anti-miner violence did not happen in a vacuum. The mine wars lasted intensely for decades, and their memory lives on in the intensity of those standing up to coal company abuses. Watch Harlan, USA or Matewan for other stunning examples of just how far the coal companies would go to keep miners and communities down.

Please see more at Appalachian Voices Flickr feed.

Appalachian Voices’ team will be here with updates all week from the historic march on Blair Mountain. We’ll have a longer piece on the background of the march up this afternoon, as well as a report from the first day.

This video by the phenomenal Jordan Freeman includes some great footage and provides a wonderful historical primer for this week.

The Battle of Blair Mountain from jordan freeman on Vimeo.

The march is already receiving some major media from outlets all across the country. Links below the fold…

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[Friends, we are fortunate today to share the voices of two of the leading advocates for Virginia’s mountains; Kathy Selvage of Wise County and Parson Brown, Director of the Topless America Project. Kathy and Parson join us today in unison to ask Congressman Frank Wolf to continue his cosponsorship of the bipartisan Clean Water Protection Act (HR 1375). Congressman Wolf is a northern Virginia Republican, who has previously cosponsored the CWPA, and who voted with Appalachian Voices against all four bad amendments to the budget bill passed by the House earlier this year. Kathy and Parson, thank you for sharing your voice with us, and please encourage your friends in Northern Virginia to contact Congressman Wolf’s office TODAY! – jw]

Dear Parson and Friends in the 10th District of the Commonwealth of Virginia,

Please encourage your Representative Frank Wolf to return to the fold and proclaim that he has regard for the integrity of water once again by being a co-sponsor on the Clean Water Protection Act in the 112th Congress. I know that you and colleagues in the 10th love mountains and clean water as much as we do in the 9th District; please share that with Representative Wolf to encourage him to be a co-sponsor once again.

Parson, we were proud to have this picture taken with Rep. Wolf in 2010 when he affirmed his commitment to clean water for all Virginians even those tucked in the far southwestern corner where we mine coal and have sacrificed greatly for the energy needs of this country. But we also live with 300 million + year old mountains that willingly give drinking water to many eastern cities of the United States, and have a rich treasure of great biological diversity (plant and animal) that is admired by the entire world.

Those who live in the ancient, wise mountains of southwest Virginia are daily confronting the ravages of mountaintop removal that decapitates our mountains for the coal beneath them and then heaps the waste, their remains, into our stream beds and upon our watersheds.

No matter how we feel about the extraction process of coal, we must understand the full benefits of another of our most precious resources—water. The very requirements for the sustaining of human life—namely, relatively clean water and clean air—are being destroyed daily in southwest Virginia. How can this be, I often ask myself.

We cannot stand for and should not tolerate the desecration of our most precious resource — water. Nature provided us with an abundant supply of water but we have squandered the use of it through waste and contamination. We can no longer afford to do this! We do not want to have to explain to our grandchildren one day that we were concerned about energy production and the economy when they have no safe water to drink.

Parson, please have all our friends in the 10th District contact Representative Wolf and ask him to reaffirm his commitment to clean water by again becoming a co-sponsor on the bill in the House. Tell him all Virginians must unite and stand together for the protection of our most valuable resource, water.

Sincerely,
Kathy Selvage

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>>Friends, we are honored to have this post by Boone County, WV resident Dustin White. THANK YOU Dustin, we hope you continue to share your amazing voice with our readers. I hope everyone will join Dustin and App Voices in the effort to save Blair Mountain- jw<< Hallowed ground. It is a term most do not think about these days. In these so called modern times we tend to forget words like hallowed, honored, or consecrated. One might ask, what makes something like land hallowed? This is a question that can be difficult to answer directly. Sometimes it is an object of a great historical event. It can be something or somewhere memories are made and held. Sometimes it is simply where individuals have passed on or even are laid to rest. And sometimes it is part of a great struggle or even a conflict where blood has been spilled. It is always something that should be honored. In any incarnation, it is something that should not be destroyed. These words, in their own right should make anything above profit, something to be cherished without a monetary value. To those who have a great connection to the land, what makes ground hallowed can mean so much more. This is why we of Appalachia struggle to protect the land from ravages of things like mountaintop removal. However, to those like the coal industry, nothing is sacred but the dollar sign. To many of who have been raised, like myself, in the Appalachian Mountains, they are hallowed ground. The Appalachian Mountains was a haven during the last Ice Age and helped reseed the planet after. For early Native Americans, they honored the land for they felt it gave them life, seeing the Appalachian Mountains as fertile and used it as hunting grounds. They never raped the land and gave back to it when they could. To the early Europeans settling the new land they called America, it was a new beginning filled with the mystery of the mountains in the horizon. And as a new nation was born, the United States of America, the Appalachian Mountains became its first frontier filled with adventure and struggle. The mountains developed a history as vivid as that of the “Old West.” A history of life and death, of struggle and prosperity. These mountains became home to its earliest pioneers, and like the Native Americans before them, many were laid to rest in them. I am proud to be descendant of some of Appalachia’s earliest settlers. Like the Native Americans before me, I feel the land of these beautiful mountains gave me life. They hold my heritage and sense of home, and their essence is my very core of existence.

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Citizen Refuse to be Shut Out of Decision Making Process

This month Congress held two pro-mountaintop removal hearings on EPA policies where the Committee attempted to shut out citizens, scientists from the region, and experts on the issue of mountaintop removal. We are very honored to have this post from Mr. Patrick Morales, an Appalachian citizen who came all the way to Washington DC to tell Nick Rahall, Bob Gibbs, and the rest of their ridiculous crew that he and his family would not be ignored, despite the Committee’s attempts to block Appalachian citizens voice while removing important citizen protections from mountaintop removal. Do you agree that Appalachian citizens deserve a voice in Washington DC? Please take a moment to stand with Mr. Morales. – JW

Patrick Morales:

Hello,

As part of an effort to to re-establish the intent of the Clean Water Act, ’72, which would curtail the most destructive form of coal mining currently used, Mountaintop Removal (MTR), I attended a House Subcommittee meeting, Chaired by Rep. Gibbs of Ohio, entitled “EPA Mining Policies: Assault on Appalachian Jobs.” This title would lead some to assume that the effort to protect drinking water from the toxic waste produced by MTR is costing jobs. When, in fact, MTR is designed from the start to lower labor cost thus cut jobs. This, while production has increased and profits have skyrocketed.

Last Wednesday, this committee reconvened and all but one of the witnesses, Nancy Stoner from the EPA, had some financial interest in keeping MTR free from oversight. Most disturbing was that of the 9 folks asked to testify during these meetings, not one person from an impacted community was asked to share their experience with MTR. Not one person whose family has a proud history of coal miners in their lineage was asked to tell why they are now out of work. No one from these communities has been asked to share about the clusters of autism, cancers, and low birth weight babies found in their towns. All physical ailments which in these cases have been shown to have direct correlations to physical proximity to this form of mining.

Mr Gibbs called this a “balanced” panel of witnesses though some of the largest contributors to his campaign were on the panels.

Folks from all over the country pay for this greed and selfishness, and in allowing MTR to continue, we pay in the form of subsidies, health care for many of those miners no longer employed, and the human heritage destroyed for profit.

Sincerely,
Patrick Morales