Blair Mountain March

So reassuring to know that the forces of reaction never change: they meet every attempt to make social, economic or environmental progress with violence.

Kevin Gostula at Firedoglake:

From Marmet, West Virginia, to Blair, West Virginia, hundreds are marching across the Appalachian region throughout this week to honor the historic labor event known as the Battle of Blair Mountain. This event designed to remember one of the largest battles in US labor history, however, is not just about history. A coalition known as Appalachia Rising is using the five-day march to call attention and protest mountaintop removal coal mining.

Parson Brown, co-founder of the Topless America Project, a small group from Chicago that has been producing a documentary on mountaintop removal coal mining for more than five years, reports at the end of the first day of the march the “exhausted marcher”s set up camp. They were met with “steady slew of harassment.” A local came on the scene and tried to “sabotage” the media RV. Cars, coal trucks and “emergency” vehicles, according to Brown, made laps around the marchers blasting horns and sirens.

SNIP

The coalition behind the “March on Blair Mountain” notes in March 2008 the mountain was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Pressure from coal operators had it removed from the list and now it is under threat.

Labor should be on the side of activists fighting mountaintop removal. MTR doesn't maintain, much less create jobs in coal country. It eliminates jobs by destroying the clean water sources, homes and communities that support jobs.

Labor knows what it's like to demand basic human rights from Big Coal - the MTR activists are on labor's side, and deserve labor's support.

*For more updates on the march, visit MarchonBlairMountain.org