AuthorsBill Blizzard & Wess Harris
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William C. Blizzard was born in 1916, son of Bill and Rae Blizzard. He died in 2009 at the age of 92. William's father was the Union's legendary hero of the Battle of Blair Mountain and this quirk of fate would both bless and curse his entire existence. He attended West Virginia University but always regarded his time there as time spent at a school meant for the offspring of operators rather than miners. Moving to New York, he attended Columbia and studied journalism and photography. These were to be his trades throughout his life. He held numerous jobs but lost more than a few due to what he identified as FBI interference--and likely a few more due to his own progressive beliefs. In the early 1950s, he worked for Labor's Daily, a labor paper published in Charleston, West Virginia. It was while at this job that he completed years of work on his magnum opus: Struggle and Lose, Struggle and Win! The work, a history of the early struggles by miners for decent working conditions, was published in Labor's Daily in serial form. Unfortunately, the paper had a policy that staff writers did not get bylines. Three days after publication, this unsigned work was wrapping dead fish and unavailable to later researchers.
Until the publication of When Miners March in 2005, William C. Blizzard was best known as a writer/photographer for the Charleston Gazette. His Sunday features are remembered to this day as highlighting the best of West Virginia. As fate--or genetics--would have it, he was fired in the early 70s for refusing to cross a picket line. The next three decades would see tight finances and declining health until in 2004 he was found by Wess Harris and a partnership was born. The first edition of When Miners March became real in 2005 and William C. Blizzard enjoyed recognition more than a half century after it was deserved. He was featured on the History Channel and delighted in autographing his books--the last few months from his bed in a nursing home.
Wess Harris is a farmer, educator, and progressive activist living in central West Virginia. Paper trained as a sociologist, his most important credentials may be his black hat (a certified underground miner) and background as a Union organizer. These, combined with a stubborn streak, ultimately persuaded then 87 year old William C. Blizzard to publish his Struggle and Lose, Struggle and Win!
Blizzard's book has consumed most of his non-farming time in recent years but Wess has also been active in the movement to preserve Blair Mountain from the ravages of mountain removal coal mining. Wess currently uses the When Miners March Traveling Museum as a means of selling Blizzard's book as well as teaching about mine and Union history. As a younger chap, Wess came under the influence of Don West, Myles Horton, Arthur E. Morgan, and a host of other almost forgotten heroes. He has recently located and digitally preserved more than half of the estimated 100 Appalachian Portraits painted by Don's wife and Highlander co-founder, Connie. As a sociologist/historian, Wess is keenly aware that all traditions are always only one generation from extinction. The traditions of progressive activists from the abolitionists, labor organizers, environmentalists, anti-war protestors, and a host of others are being systematically attacked by the interests of those in power. Wess is devoting the remainder of his productive years to telling the stories to one more generation.
Picture: Labor Day Celebration in Charleston 2004. Wess Harris, Bill (William C.) Blizzard, and Cecil Roberts.
When Miners March
Author: William C. Blizzard
Edited by Wess Harris
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 978-1-60486-300-0
Published: September 2010
Format: Paperback
Size: 9 by 6
Page count: 408
Subjects: Labor, History-US
$21.95
In the first half of the 20th century, strikes and Union battles, murders and frame-ups, were common in every industrial center in the U.S. But none of these episodes compared in scope to the West Virginia Mine Wars.
The uprisings of coal miners that defined the Mine Wars of the 1920’s were a direct result of the Draconian rule of the coal companies. The climax was the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest open and armed rebellion in U.S. history. The Battle, and Union leader Bill Blizzard’s quest for justice, was only quelled when the U.S. Army brought guns, poison gas and aerial bombers to stop the 10,000 bandanna-clad miners who formed the spontaneous “Red Neck Army.”
Over half a century ago, William C. Blizzard wrote the definitive insider’s history of the Mine Wars and the resulting trial for treason of his father, the fearless leader of the Red Neck Army. Events dramatized in John Sayles film Matewan, and fictionalized in Denise Giardina’s stirring novel Storming Heaven, are here recounted as they actually occurred. This is a people's history, complete with previously unpublished family photos and documents. If it brawls a little, and brags a little, and is angry more than a little, well, the people in this book were that way.
Praise:
"When Miners March is an extraordinary account of a largely ignored but important event in the history of our nation."
--Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States
"When Miners March is a national treasure, a recovered gem of American History that should be required reading today. Never has a book been timelier; never has Wm. C. Blizzard's inside account of his legendary father's march to liberate the Appalachian coalfields from the abuses of King Coal been more relevant."
--Jeff Biggers, author of The United States of Appalachia
"This engaging book...is a valuable contribution to the preservation of a history that should be honored and never lost. Read it and weep, and cheer."
--Harry Cleaver, author of Reading Capital Politically
"Essentially an oral history on paper, When Miners March is the story of the birth of the UMWA in West Virginia. It is also a study of the reality of capitalism and its toll on those who work in its sphere. It's about men who believe in the the possibilities of human solidarity and other men who succumb to greed and power. It is a testimony to the power of the idea that everyone deserves a safe workplace, a decent wage, and the life such a wage buys. Most importantly, this book is an inspiration to those who still believe that those things are worth fighting for."
--Ron Jacobs, Counterpunch
--Kari Lydersen, In These Times
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- When Miners March: In These Times
- When Miners March: Counterpunch
- Wess Harris on Mine Museum Displays: Charleston Gazette
When Miners March: West Va. Coalfield Tales Still Resonate
By Kari Lydersen
In These Times
Blizzard’s description of massacres by company militias are breath-taking. At Ludlow in 1914:
Hired militias brought into Matewan also carried out violence with near-impunity. Police chief Sid Hatfield, sympathetic to the union, was murdered in broad daylight. His companion, Ed Chambers was allegedly shot at close range right in front of his young wife, who hit the murderer, infamous informant C.E. Lively, with her umbrella.Women and children in the strikers’ camp were awakened by the murderous cough of machine guns and the ripping canvas and wood as slugs plowed through their temporary homes…the women and children crawled out of their holes under cover of darkness and inched along on their bellies to the safety of a freight train. And then the militia swarmed into Ludlow, set fire to the riddled tents and conducted a kind of war dance while they watched the flames eat into the April night.
A Review of When Miners March: Struggle and Lose, Struggle and Win!By Ron Jacobs
Counterpunch
According to the story, miners who were in the union (the union of course being the United Mine Workers of America-UMWA) or sympathetic to it wore red bandannas tied around their necks so that other miners and their families could differentiate friend from foe. Hence the name redneck. Wearing that red kerchief opened one to all kinds of abuse by the forces of law and order, private and public. It's not like there was really much difference between the two, however, seeing as how the coal operators and owners ran the entire state of West Virginia. Some things don't change very much, do they?
"Harris also takes issue with aspects of the portrayal of William "Bill'' Blizzard, the longtime union organizer who led the miners at Blair Mountain and was acquitted at his subsequent trial. One exhibit calls Blizzard a Socialist. He was instead a Republican for most of his life, Harris said.
Harris' sources on that include Blizzard's late son, who with Harris wrote "When Miners March.'' The 400-page book chronicles the unrest in the coalfields that culminated in the Battle of Blair Mountain. Its recently released second edition includes several of Harris' criticisms of the museum's coal displays."
