Appalachia Is Not a Corporate Love Story. Bootlicking Was Never Our Heritage. Remember Harlan County.

In June 1973, miners at the Brookside coal mine in Harlan County, Kentucky voted 113 to 55 to leave the Southern Labor Union and join the United Mine Workers of America. The SLU was widely seen as serving mine owners more than workers. Brookside was operated by Eastover Coal Company, a subsidiary of Duke Power. When the miners voted to affiliate with UMWA, Eastover refused to recognize the union or sign a contract. After a month of failed negotiations, 180 miners walked off the job on July 26, 1973, beginning a strike that would last 13 months.

The strike was not about wages. Pay was comparable to other mines nationwide. The core demand was the right to organize under UMWA, along with the creation of a worker Safety Committee and improved medical benefits. Eastover insisted on a no strike clause and continued to reject union recognition. The company brought in replacement workers who drove through picket lines, sometimes injuring strikers, and hired prisoners as security. Violence and intimidation escalated quickly.

A local judge who was also a mine owner limited picketing to three people per entrance. Several miners were jailed for violating the order. In response, wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters formed the Brookside Women’s Club in September 1973 and took over the picket lines. Nearly 100 women blocked roads, confronted strikebreakers, and endured arrests, assaults, and gunfire. They were largely nonviolent but did not formally commit to nonviolence. Tensions exploded in February 1974 when several women stabbed a sheriff who had violently dragged one of them from the road.

Strikers organized community outreach and UMWA launched a national “Dump Duke” divestment campaign. They sang “Which Side Are You On?” a song born of earlier Harlan struggles. Throughout the strike miners reported shootings, bombings, threats, and attempted bribes. More than 90 arrests and dozens of violent incidents were documented. Though some strikers carried weapons, there were no reports of them firing their guns.

In April 1974, a National Labor Relations Board judge ruled that Eastover had deliberately stalled negotiations by insisting on an unacceptable no strike clause. National attention intensified, including through Barbara Kopple’s documentary Harlan County, USA. In August 1974, a mine supervisor shot and killed 23 year old striker Lawrence D. Jones. The killing shocked the nation. Five days later, Eastover offered a contract.

Brookside was never about loyalty to a company. It was about the right to organize, the right to safety, and the refusal to kneel. Harlan County remembered.