You can visit just
about any long-operating city in this country and find a local monument to the
rich capitalist who built the mansion during year whatever. But you have to
look far and wide to find memorials to the people whose labor created those
riches, to those who died in the battles for such modern-day givens as the
eight-hour work day and weekends off, and to the organizers who brought the
workers together into the unions that helped create the nation’s
now-disappearing middle class.
Scott Martelle
Los Angeles Times
“Opinion: The new battle over Blair Mountain -- with lawyers
instead of guns.”
 |
Clyde Eastham
The crutches are due to a mine injury. |
"On a hot summer day in 1921 Clyde Herbert Eastham slung his
shotgun over his shoulder, kissed his young wife and babies goodbye, and
marched out the door of his cramped coal camp cabin to join thousands of other
West Virginia miners in a strike that had the attention of the entire country."
That is the beginning of a story I wrote about my grandfather, Clyde Herbert Eastham, and his participation in the struggle to
unionize the coal mines of West Virginia. This particular attempt culminated in
the Battle of Blair Mountain and ended in defeat. Thousands of miners marched
in West Virginia tired of their working conditions, including the murder of
many who tried to change the system.
They made a stand on Blair Mountain, against an army of “special
deputies”, Baldwin-Felts thugs, state police, and eventually federal troops,
accompanied by 14 armed bombers. My grandfather was blacklisted from the mines
for years, but he continued the effort, even holding secret meetings at his
home.
