It’s Getting Hot In Here

– Guest Post by Denise Giardina regarding the upcoming March on Blair Mountain –

The March on Blair Mountain is a unifying rally involving environmental justice organizations, workers, scholars, artists, and other citizens and groups. Visit appalachiarising.org or marchonblairmountain.org for information. See you in June 4 – 11!

Ninety years ago, in 1921, thousands of coal miners marched from Marmet, West Virginia to Blair Mountain in Logan County. They were West Virginians from a variety of backgrounds, standing up against coal companies for their freedom and basic human rights. They tied red bandannas around their necks and marched to throw out local politicians who had aligned themselves with coal companies. They marched because they were dying from unsafe working conditions, because they were being cheated out of their rightful pay. They marched because they were being denied the right to join a union, because their families were living in terrible conditions and dying from ill health, because coal company thugs subjected them to violence, because the companies and state government were taking away their basic civil liberties.

When these brave miners reached Blair Mountain, they found coal company forces and state police arrayed against them with rifles and machine guns. The standoff lasted for several days and ended when federal troops with not only machine guns, but also poison gas, and airplanes with bombs, arrived on the scene. The Battle of Blair Mountain was one of the most stirring and important events in labor history in the United States. For several days it commanded the top headlines in newspapers such as the New York Times. The immediate aftermath was the crushing of the United Mine Workers throughout the region for the next twelve years, but with the election of Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, the hope of Blair Mountain was realized. The United Mine Workers of America began the long process of improving the lot of American coal miners.

How far we have fallen in the last thirty years! Coal companies like Massey (now Alpha Energy) have stripped union protection from miners who are dying in devastating accidents. Because of coal company intimidation, basic civil liberties like freedom of assembly are infringed. Coalfield residents are again dying because of the poisoning of the environment from valley fills, slurry injections, and coal ash. West Virginia politicians continue in the pockets of the coal companies, where they attempt to deprive their citizens of their state of even the basic protections that the fed government provides. And mountains across the region are being destroyed. Even Blair Mountain, that most important peak in West Virginia’s history, is not safe.

Our ancestors who marched on Blair Mountain understood some things that we would like to remind our fellow West Virginians, Appalachians and Americans about. The coal miners who marched on Blair Mountain understood that they were not friends of coal. These coal miners deeply understood that the West Virginia coal operators and the international coal industry were not their friends. They understood that they must stand against coal companies.

We are here to announce a new, peaceful march on Blair Mountain in early June, and we invite our fellow citizens to join us. We call for protection for Blair Mountain from mountaintop removal; indeed, an end to all mountaintop removal. We call for protection of our streams and our drinking water. We call for our politicians to protect people and the environment. We call for coal to be deep mined by union coal miners who are protected by their union and by strong government regulatory agencies. We call for West Virginia to become once again the Mountain State, to proclaim the beauty of the summits of the West Virginia hills and to insist that mountaineers are always free. We call for Americans to stand up again for our freedoms and our land, and against those corporations who would destroy both.

DENISE GIARDINA is a writer who was born and raised in the small coal camp of Black Wolf in McDowell County, West Virginia. Her novels, fictionalizing historical characters and events, have been critically acclaimed and recognized with a number of literary prizes. Her novel Storming Heaven portrays life in southern West Virginia in the period during and preceding the coal mine wars, and culminates in the Battle of Blair Mountain. Giardina is an ordained Episcopal Church deacon, a community activist and a former candidate for the WV state governorship. She is active in social justice issues in the Appalachian coalfields, working for land reform in an area that is largely owned by absentee corporations, demonstrating with striking miners, and speaking out against mountaintop removal. She is currently writer-in-residence at West Virginia State University.

In 25 countries on five continents, the next generation of youth climate activists are participating in the iMatter march by taking to the streets and to the courts to demand action. Here at It’s Getting Hot in Here, we have seen a youth climate movement explode in Montreal, grow up (quite literally) organizing events like Power Shift, and launching organizations like 350.org, Summer of Solutions, the Indian Youth Climate Network, and so many more.

Continue reading ‘On Mother’s Day, Hundreds of Events for iMatter March’

Cross-posted from WeArePowerShift.org. Guest blogger, Mallory Flowers, University of Alabama.

The only thing I know for sure right now is that I’m very lucky. I live in campus housing—on the side of Tuscaloosa that didn’t get touched by the recent tornados. In the moments after the storm, my friends and I knew it must have been bad, but it took hours, even days, for the full impact to be realized. Many are dead, and many more have had their lives forever changed.

I cannot accurately describe the way it felt to see my city destroyed—seemingly attacked, with no enemy to blame. Neither can I express the way it felt when I realized that my campus was now more of a refugee camp than a school. Waiting in lines for sandwiches and cups of water, the only available food, we hoped our phone batteries would last long enough to keep bringing us updates until power was restored.

Driving across parts of town that were once bustling hubs of business and student life, and seeing them now dark, deserted, and destroyed was completely surreal. Traffic was worse than it is on Game Day—and if you’ve ever been in Tuscaloosa for a football game, you know that’s saying something.

As we watched the death toll climb, and as we heard news, good and bad, of our friends, armed guards watched us from every street corner, preventing looting in our normally peaceful college town. But over the roar of helicopters piloted by news teams and the National Guard, of generators providing emergency power to campus, and of sirens continually sounding in the distance, there was laughter.

Somehow, despite the feeling of helplessness as we sat in the dark not knowing what to do or how to help, the Tuscaloosa spirit was preserved. Within hours of the double-vortex EF-4 tornado gorging a 1.5-mile wide scar through our town and others, it was evident that it had not destroyed our sense of community. We in the South are known to be resilient, and this time is no exception. Much has been lost, but with it, much opportunity to serve, grow, and move forward.

Tuscaloosa is not the only town affected—much of north Alabama is devastated, with some towns wiped clear off the map.  And as we rebuild, we will do so with a purpose. We will replace the damaged police and fire stations, the water towers, the homes, we will clear the roads of the trees that were thrown, fully uprooted, into the road.

To outsiders, the South is often known more for its poverty and “backwoods” culture than for the beauty and hospitality those that live here enjoy every day. But we now have the chance to rebuild our aging, and in places failing, infrastructure. We will take this chance to rebuild our town, and reclaim our state. We will rebuild Alabama efficiently, with better technology, and do so using less energy.

As droves of volunteers take to the streets, the one thing everyone can see is that it is students taking the reigns on this effort. The youth will not wait patiently for others to fix this problem. We are here to take back Tuscaloosa, bring back Birmingham, and aide all the small towns in between, and make them truly better than ever before.

I lied when I said I only know one thing. I know I’m lucky, but I also know that we’ll move forward from here. I know that Alabama will work together to become better. I know that we will move towards solar energy—so that next time a storm like this happens, millions don’t sit without power. I know we’ll seek real climate solutions, to ease the risk of more of these storms happening. I know that Alabama will be a better state, that our communities will become stronger, and that our youth will step up to the challenge that has been placed before them.

Roll Tide Roll.

Cross-posted from WeArePowerShift.org

Washington, D.C., for better or worse, always feels like a losing battle.  I am educated enough to know that our politics are polluted by corporate money.  I have lobbied enough to know that even congressional allies will say the political climate “isn’t right” for climate legislation.  I have even been arrested enough to know that 100 people committing civil disobedience in front of the White House isn’t enough to move leaders on a moral issue. So what gives?

Though I am often discouraged by my time in D.C., I still made the trek to Power Shift 2011 if only to meet with other youth equally confused about the direction of our movement.  It is clear to me, at least on the national political stage, that we are not winning.  The EPA is under attack, climate legislation is off the agenda until 2013, and mountaintop removal mining is still legal in the U.S. court of law.  So we have a lot to reflect on as a movement.  This time I went to Power Shift not with any definitive strategies or answers, but with many questions about what’s next for young people willing to dedicate their lives to confronting the climate crisis.  The main question that guided me throughout the weekend was this: In the face of all these challenges, how can I be most effective?

I spent some time in the Clean Economy Track, where I have a personal connection with Grand Aspirations, a youth-led organization that is building the clean economy from the ground up.  I am one of three Chicago Program Leaders for the Summer of Solutions, a Grand Aspirations leadership-training program running in 15 cities this summer.  Solution-based work like this is a major component of my answer to the question of how to be most effective. We need to draw the line in the sand as a movement and say “no” to the polluters, but we also need to offer our society the “yeses” that build the clean and just future we are demanding.  The Summer of Solutions is just one of several summer programs that are offering those “yeses”. Continue reading ‘Why Going to Jail for Climate Justice is More than a Responsibility: A Closer Look at Our Movement’s Tactics’