this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2025
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Today I Learned

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The Battle of Blair Mountain saw 10,000 West Virginia coal miners march in protest of perilous work conditions, squalid housing and low wages, among other grievances. They set out from the small hamlet of Marmet, with the goal of advancing upon Mingo County, a few days’ travels away to meet the coal companies on their own turf and demand redress. They would not reach their goal; the marchers instead faced opposition from deputized townspeople and businesspeople who opposed their union organizing, and more importantly, from local and federal law enforcement that brutally shut down the burgeoning movement. The opposing sides clashed near Blair Mountain, a 2,000-foot peak in southwestern Logan County, giving the battle its name.


Miners then often lived in company towns, paying rent for company-owned shacks and buying groceries from the company-owned store with “scrip.” Scrip wasn’t accepted as U.S. currency, yet that’s how the miners were paid. For years, miners had organized through unions including the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), leading protests and strikes. Nine years prior to Blair Mountain, miners striking for greater union recognition clashed with armed Baldwin-Felts agents, hired mercenaries employed by coal companies to put down rebellions and unionizing efforts. The agents drove families from their homes at gunpoint and dumped their belongings. An armored train raced through a tent colony of the evicted miners and sprayed their tents with machine gun fire, killing at least one. In 1914, those same agents burned women and children alive in a mining camp cellar at Ludlow, Colorado.

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[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 52 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Only a hundred years ago. We can't even go 100 years without evil infesting our government.

[–] Tiger666@lemmy.ca 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The US government has always been evil. What are you talking about? Maybe learn about how evil a foreign policy the US has.

[–] zebidiah@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

I dunno... Carter seemed like he was maybe cool, but I wasn't alive yet back then

[–] theangryseal@lemmy.world 53 points 2 days ago (2 children)

You know what sucks about this story the most for me?

I grew up with these people’s descendants. You know what they’re doing right now?

The entire area voted more than 80% for Trump.

It bums me out so much, but then, I get it. We have NOTHING. The only means of making a living around here for regular folks is mining coal. The democrats want to end the use of fossil fuels. Of course they do, but it has turned everyone into republicans around here. Nobody is offering alternatives that truly benefit anyone but the people who are already wealthy.

The people who already had money are turning all of the land into ATV trails, and every halfwit with a camera comes to town and gawks at the poor folks for YouTube money.

My god, it all pisses me off.

[–] Professorozone@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You forgot to mention that most of them also have black lung.

Don't tell them or they'll start lynching their own internal organs.

[–] halferect@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I mean 90 billion dollars was set aside to teach them how to green energy but they voted to mine coal instead, I feel nothing for ignorant people, this is what they voted for

[–] theangryseal@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I feel for ignorant people, so I’ll let your comment slide.

[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The point is “nobody thinks about or cares for or helps them” is absolutely bullshit. Any attempts at help meet deaf, defeatist, petulant ears.

[–] theangryseal@lemmy.world 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You spend decades starving after you had it good, being smacked in the face by people who tell you that you’re just too stupid to understand, all while knowing that drugs were tested on your people, 2/3 of your friends and family are dead from it.

At that point, you’re dealing with a defeated people who have been fed promise after promise. Schools haven’t properly educated them since the 60s. Propaganda by pretend preachers is the only hope these people had.

The only thing I had growing up was school books from the 60s and 70s, church, and a faint memory of a time when everything was clean and good.

If I hadn’t been lucky enough to have a wealthy relative with a computer and access to the internet, I’d be right there with them. Opposing whatever crap people were trying to help me with and clinging to the one thing that I know for sure works around here. I know with 100% certainty that I wouldn’t have been able to learn anything without that little bit of luck, and at exactly the right time. Most of those people weren’t so lucky. By the time the internet became something they could afford, it was too late. Now it’s a propaganda machine that uses algorithms to further brainwash people and push them deeper into their idiocy. They don’t get the information about the clean energy initiatives. They get the information that comes from the last handful of rich assholes who own the coal companies and their cronies.

Jim Justice filled paychecks with propaganda and laid off several men in 2012 in anticipation of a Democratic victory. If you could have seen the anger I seen. That jackass owes my brother money to this day, but it was easy to convince them it was someone else’s fault when everything that had happened leading up to it was another head stomp deeper into the mud.

Change isn’t going to come overnight. These people were left to die while the world went on without them and then kicked while they were down with a so called “drug epidemic”.

They don’t trust anyone. They have a damn good reason for that.

I try to keep my emotions in check, but I get so angry when I think about this shit.

When I look back at my happy childhood memories, playing Nintendo with friends, I immediately get hit with heartbreak because the only people in a room full of kids who are alive today are me and my brother. The tiny amount of privilege we had is the only reason we weren’t buried with all of our friends.

My blood boils. I know that my people are stupid, but we’ve been intentionally kept that way for a long time. If it wasn’t intentional, it sure as shit seems that way.

[–] Machinist@lemmy.world 19 points 2 days ago

Not who you were replying to. I have sort of similar roots, angst, and anger. My grandparents grew up sharecroppers, entire extended family are fundamentalists.

There's nothing inherently wrong with being ignorant. It's just a matter of education. Willfull ignorance, on the other hand, is the greatest sin.

The part I still can't wrap my head around is falling for a New York, city slicker, orange ass, conman. My people used to dislike cops, hate the government, guns were just a fun tool for farm and hunting, and were suspicious of military jingoism and flag waving.

I wasn't able to get a single friend or family member to see how they were being manipulated, how they were changing. I changed some, especially when I lost the religion, but I feel like I'm closer to our roots than they are. It's profoundly alienating. I hate my own people a lot of the time. I'm so angry at them for fucking falling for such transparent bullshit. Fuck the evil bastards that lied them into it.

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This is pretty similar to primary form of settler colonialism in the US too. Come in destroy the primary way of living and then offer charity with strings attached to help civilize or remove the natives.

[–] theangryseal@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Thank you for this comment.

The asshole you replied to can’t seem to grasp what you’re saying, but I do and I appreciate it.

And notice he quickly replied to you but ignored what I said.

Oh well.

[–] halferect@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Coal companies are now native Americans and the people working coal are native Americans? The poor endangered coal miner, why doesn't anyone help them.

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

You'll civilize them yet ol chap. Filthy savages mining coal like theyre family and community expected them too. Why don't they just drop all of that nasty business and take up more savory professions already? Ask them why? Ha those fools can't have any meaningful reasons, surely you and I know what is best for them. /S

I mean honestly though, I'm pro clean energy. I'm pro shutting down the coal industry. But have you actually heard anyone from there talk about what they want or what theyre concerns are?

[–] Juice@midwest.social 4 points 2 days ago

I used to be evil. I still am, but I used to be too

[–] agelord@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Y'all are still living under an evil infested government.

[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That's literally what i just said.

[–] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

not really. you very very strongly implied that there was a period it stopped being infested with evil

[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago

You're right. I have no idea what i said. Thanks for letting me know.