Hearing those words made me feel like Henry had bitten the rattle off the snake and handed it back as some sort of peace offering. We set off in his white Crown Vic for a tour of the Smoky Mountains, which appeared as inviting as pillows stacked five deep on a hotel bed, a sharp contrast to Harlans rugged peaks. It wasnt until a Rolls-Royce sat in one of their garages that I fully comprehended the truth: they were indeed quite rich. Nominally a documentary about the 1973 strike by Kentucky mineworkers, the 1976 Oscar-winning Harlan County U.S.A. observes the evolution of a movement, made urgent by circumstances (miners'. Youll either be a union man or a thug for J. H. Blair. But what if a person is both of these things at once, or interchangeably? But the strike didnt improve things for the Highsplint miners who joined Brookside on the line. Joseph Yablonski was a passionate, populistic union representative who was loved by many of the miners. Later, after he was convicted of giving $20,000 to another union executive council member to hire the killers of Yablonski and his wife, Boyle appears frail, sickly and using a wheelchair; he was carried up the courthouse steps to face sentencing. Pretty soon all the guns are out, in broad daylight, and no help is coming, not for the union men (and union women; there never were more fearless soldiers than these mine wives), and not for the gun thugs, either. As of January 1, 2015, theres not a single union coal mine left in the state of Kentucky. Close this window, and upload the photo(s) again. [7], Harlan County, USA was preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in conjunction with New York Women in Film & Television, in 2004. When miners at the Brookside Mine in Harlan County, Kentucky, went on strike against Duke Power Company in June 1973, Kopple went there to film the strike, which the UMWA had helped to organize. Add the cucumber slices and muddle again. It rippled cross the country I remember running into a camouflaged crew in Southern Illinois thatd just set a fox they said was rabid on its way down into a mine full of scabsbut I never was able to figure out who won. Perhaps it was the brilliance of the Florida sunlight, or the way the air could feel like a steam bath even indoors, but my relatives wealth seemed dreamlike and unrealalmost a fictionthough I saw it with my eyes in the oil portraits that adorned their walls and felt it with my hands when I fingered their silk-covered antiques. We have set your language to To visit him, I drove into the mountains up the Clover Fork valley, where fog smoldered across the hills in ghostly wisps. I was wary that I was violating the same family code that had prompted my maternal great-aunt to write me off for attending Reed College, a Communist, leftist, anti-American institution. My family never forbade me to do much of anything, but I knew they felt that the film was one-sided, a setup, or propaganda. Most of all, they were beside themselves over the fact that they had grown up at Brookside and knew next to no one in the film. Quickly see who the memorial is for and when they lived and died and where they are buried. She talks about a standoff against Basil Collins and the scabs and gun thugs. My mother was shipped off to finishing school in 1951 at the age of sixteen and never lived in Harlan again. I know every weed in the mountains, even here. Its got a tangy sweet flavor, a cucumber basil essence and a load of bubbles packed in that glass. I loved to cut that coal. In the documentary, his mother can be seen breaking down during his funeral, screaming and being carried away by male attendees. Like Henry, these men were now in their sixties and seventies, and retired from the mines but still working in a variety of capacities, from doing occasional contracting jobs to volunteering in the community. This was my third trip to Harlan. To use this feature, use a newer browser. Sorry! And most of us have teeth., When I finally met Henry at a fast-food restaurant on the four-lane strip outside of Harlan, I was completely taken aback. Moments after Workmans scene, a woman (who turns out to be Lois Scotts daughter) describes the company as the enemy. I had always presumed she was talking about my familys company, but her grandfather worked at a mine thirty miles away from Brookside. He treats them all as though they are family, but he also rents rooms by the hour. It was a reality show., People wanted to just get through that strike. Its Appalachian. That was a lot of money back then.. Try again later. They gave him sticks and he played that and they marched him to the river and threw him in., Something about this story got to me, unexpectedly. But that doesnt quite get at it, either. Perhaps this was ultimately why labor issues burn people up so terribly, because they always come down to familythe families were born into along with the ones we raise, and the brotherhood and sisterhood that work creates for us, especially down in the mines, and for men like Ferguson and Johnson. Jordan Smith, who grew up singing in Harlan County churches, gave the country a taste of Harlans wholesome side during the 2015 season of The Voice. A few months before I left for Harlan, news broke that the United Kingdoms last deep coal mine had closed, a momentous event signaling the end of a centuries-old industry (think of all those Dickens characters). Later that year, Yablonski and his family were found murdered in their home. Now 75, Chester has endured his share of losses. When it runs down, he says hell decide whether he wants to have a new one installed. Usery Jr. summoned Eastover president Norman Yarborough and Duke Powers board chairman to Washington, D.C., where they signed the UMWA contract at last. terms and conditions. Henry had arranged for me to meet a group of men who grew up in coal camps and worked at Brookside, Highsplint, and other mines in the 1970smen who were all on the company side of the strike. Or that lament No one ever gets Harlan right, the one I had dubbed The Ballad of Harlan County. The lost songs I imagined were altogether different. More than 75 witnesses have been called and about 800 photographs, reports . A Brookside mine foreman named Basil Collins says the unions are filled with "known communists" out to destroy the country. Get more of what the mainstream media leaves out. Its time for us to get just as violent as they are, she says to the Brookside Womens Club, the group of miners wives she began to lead. Lewis described Workman as being expressive of the region as a whole and explained that this kind of generalizing is not unusual in documentary. Oops, something didn't work. Please check your email and click on the link to activate your account. The documentary concludes with the message that the miners struggle is forever ongoing. Weve updated the security on the site. It must have been written all over my face, because Johnson said, Theys a lot better ways to have done thatbut thats what they did. And while I see her larger point, I still find it misleading. cemeteries found in Claiborne County, Tennessee, USA will be saved to your photo volunteer list. His pain began in 1983 after a rib rolla mine roof support collapsesent a big old rock into his back, forcing him into early retirement. what happened to basil collins harlan county. I took a good hard look at this ailing place. (To cite but one example: Boyle had ordered the murder of his 1969 challenger Jock Yablonski, along with his wife and daughter.) When Harlans coalfield was developed in the 1910s, the rocky terrain made transportation to the mines difficult, necessitating the creation of camps to house the workers. No one was hurt. (Most every able-bodied person I met in Harlan was either still working, or yearning to work; hard work defines this place.) Pine Mountain stood tall to the north; to the south was Cumberland Gap, across which Daniel Boone led settlers. Basil Collins; Did you know. Use the links under See more to quickly search for other people with the same last name in the same cemetery, city, county, etc. Someday, years from now therell be a bunch of miners who never even heard of a union, and theyll in vent one. She took some heat from the union, too, which was concerned that she and her crew were getting too close to the miners. But I knew I didnt want to come back in a few years and find this place finally, officially gone. Work is often erratic for Robert, but he recently found three months work building a home. She notes that Duke Power Company's profits increased 170 percent in a single year. Photos larger than 8Mb will be reduced. I think [the film] saved a lot of people from getting killed, he said. Angrier; forty years ago! Get more of what the mainstream media leaves out. Eastern Kentucky has been especially hard-hit: The number of miners employed in Harlan County fell from more than 3,000 in 1988 to fewer than 1,000 in 2014. I couldnt see it yet myself. At the time of the strike, Yarborough, Eastovers president, was living in the house where my mother grew up. No one ever gets Harlan right, is a lament I have heard from my Harlan relatives all my life. The sponsor of a memorial may add an additional. Parts of the documentary troubled me, though. How can we be the enemy? There were plenty of reasons why the Whitfields could be the enemya point I knew my cousin also understandsbut Harlans mines were not all the same. In 2008, though, the industry began collapsing. The many welcoming touches to the Fergusons dcordishes of hard candies, angel figurines, framed prayers written in flowing script adorning the wallsreminded me of some of my fathers familys and neighbors homes in rural Georgia. Here are our top ways to make basil cocktails: This basil cocktail is great for summer: or anytime you have a bushy herb plant that needs a use! Lewis joined him and took a job in a sewing factory until they moved back to Kentucky to make films together, including The Mine War on Blackberry Creek, a documentary about a strike at West Virginias A.T. Massey Coal Company. Hazel Dickens's folk song lyrics of 'United we stand, divided we fall' and Florence Reece's lyrics for "Which Side Are You On?" After that, its just a matter of shaking and straining. William Floyd Collins was born on July 20, 1887 , on the Collins family farm, located approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Mammoth Cave near the Green River in Kentucky.He was the third child of Leonidas "Lee" Collins and Martha Jane Burnett, who gave birth to eight children: Elizabeth (died at three months of age), James "Jim", Floyd, Annie, Andy Lee, Marshall, Nellie, and Homer. Almost a full year into the strike, miner Lawrence Jones was fatally shot during a scuffle. Jackie Stump says: There may not be a real fighting union again in his lifetime. Now, he owns and lives in a rural Georgia motel that caters to low-income people who dont fit into public housing for a variety of reasons, ranging from addiction to their status as seasonal workers. Kentucky State Police said by telephone that they had arrested and charged with "malicious shooting and wounding with intent to kill" Billy C. Bruner, 39 years old, said to be a foreman at one of. 1939 - 1945 World War II - Ages: 29 - 24 years. Nolan, age seventy-one, is a retired miner. Resthaven is where I went the first time I came to Harlan, when I was nineteen, for my great-uncle General Edwin B. Howards funeral. "Harlan County, U.S.A. movie review (2006)", "Complete National Film Registry Listing", "Sight and Sound Publishes Top 50 Documentaries List | IndieWire", "The Best Documentaries of All Time | Sight & Sound", "Barbara Kopple Reflects on Joys and Dangers of Filming Harlan County, USA", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harlan_County,_USA&oldid=1129812783, Norman Yarborough - Eastover Mining president, John Corcoran - Consolidation Coal president, John O'Leary - former US Bureau of Mines director, Donald Rasmussen - Black Lung Clinic, West Virginia, "Forty-Two Years", written and sung by Nimrod Workman, instrumental by Kenny Kosek, "Come All You Coal Miners", written and sung by, "Black Lung", written and sung by Hazel Dickens, "Cold Blooded Murder", written and sung by Hazel Dickens, "Miners Life", traditional instrumental performed by David Morris's Band, "Which Side Are You On", written and sung by Florence Reece (as Florence Reese), additional lyrics by Joshua Waletzky (as Josh Waletzky), "This Little Light of Mine", written by Harry Dixon Loes (uncredited), sung by, "Trouble Among Yearlings", instrumental by Country Cookin', "Lone Prairie", by Roscoe Holcomb and Wade Ward, "They'll Never Keep Us Down", written and sung by Hazel Dickens, accompanied by Lamar Grier, John Katarakis, John Otsuka, and Gary Henderson, In 1990, the film was selected for the United States, Gail Pellet, "The Making of Harlan County, USA: An Interview with Barbara Kopple,". It had seemed like an ordinary cemetery to me until my mother showed me the family mausoleum, a large and elaborate marble structure. Americans were accustomed to stories of labor strikes in the 1970s, but news of the womens involvementhow they lay down in the road and were dragged off to jail with their childrenset Brookside apart. In 1912, Bryan opened Brookside, whose original company name was Harlan Collieries. I was thrilled by its real-life drama and intimate portrayal of the miners lives. I had to get on with my future. Both of us got saved at about the same time. (Most people who stood on the Brookside picket line are no longer alive.) what happened to basil collins harlan county . My visit fell during the week of Super Tuesday, and the men chorused over cups of coffee about the Detroit GOP presidential debate (Ive been at rooster fights that werent as entertaining as last night) and the communitys demise. give one the full-flavor of the miners' mood and the union fervor sweeping the mining community in the black mountains of Appalachia. Thanks for using Find a Grave, if you have any feedback we would love to hear from you. Miners who never even heard of a memorial may add an additional ' and. Quite what happened to basil collins kentucky at it, either place finally, officially gone mother was shipped off to finishing school 1951., Tennessee, USA will be saved to your photo volunteer list Workmans... Click on the link to activate your account company 's profits increased percent... It wasnt until a Rolls-Royce sat in one of their garages that I fully comprehended the truth: were! 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