Bill Bruner is scot-free. said to be a foreman at one of two struck Duke Power Company coal mines in the county. You think you have a certain idea, but you have to let that leave your mind and let whatever happens happen and just go with it. This led to a mostly nonviolent national campaign of strikes involving nearly 120,000 miners. Critics have noted how the film coheres to certain fictional patterns of Hollywood realism, echoing the 1954 labor drama Salt of the Earth, which Kopple showed to the miners during the strike. Bobby's wife, Becky, who died in 2013, was a lifelong advocate for the people of Harlan County. Which side are you on? That was the original. The group met with approximately 50 members of the community and toured the area. WILLIAM BRUNER OBITUARY. For the episode of Justified, see, Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, Murder of workers in labor disputes in the United States, List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States, "Hall of Fame: Power of Arts & Creative Expression -", "TROOPS WATCH AS HARLAN VOTES: Turbulent County Ballots Heavily", "TROOPS AGAIN MOVE ON HARLAN COUNTY: Occupation of Kentucky Area", "Prepare to Meet Thy God: War in the Harlan County Coal Fields", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harlan_County_War&oldid=1133850196, This page was last edited on 15 January 2023, at 20:44. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". I went to wikipedia to look for the quote from Brecht's The Jewish Wife about how character was a thing that could be measured in units of time, but I couldn't find it. The Harlan County War, or Bloody Harlan, was a series of coal mining-related skirmishes, executions, bombings, and strikes (both attempted and realized) that took place in Harlan County, Kentucky, during the 1930s. Stay up to date on politics, sports, local business, crime and community news. Hennen writes that " [b]y late 1931, four thousand Harlan County miners, more than one in three, were out of work. On May 5, 1931 the pot boiled over; in Harlan County Kentucky, heavily armed deputies and company men, called gun thugs by miners, confronted disgruntled union men on a road near Evarts. That's so sad. Generations-- John Egerton 6. . [Bloody] Harlan County was happening, so I went and stayed there for 13 months. Holly Hunter and Ted Levine are the main characters. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Neurological Surgery Orthopedic Spine Surgery . Todd Melby: His name is Basil Collins. On May 5, 1931 the pot boiled over; in Harlan County Kentucky, heavily armed deputies and company men, called gun thugs by miners, confronted disgruntled union men on a road near Evarts. I started doing the during the time of Miners for Democracy. Todd Melby: If I remember correctly, one of the very close opening shots is the miner going into the coal mine on a horizontal conveyor belt. Mr. Bruner was wounded . It had a great impression on me throughout the rest of my career. The Harlan County War, or Bloody Harlan, was a series of coal mining-related skirmishes, executions, bombings, and strikes (both attempted and realized) that took place in Harlan County, Kentucky during the 1930s. Main Menu. Why is it that the mine owner, union officials and a doctor are identified by name onscreen but the miners and their wives are not? A seventy-three-year-old Florence Reece attended and led a rousing, emotional rendition of Which Side Are You On?. The main goal of the strike was the right of the workers to form a union as part of the UMWA. There have been wars, phylloxera again in the mid-'80s, the big recession in 2008 and the Great Depression of course before that. It does not store any personal data. (Robert Gumpert / Appalshop Archive). Barbara Kopple: No. . Then one of the striking miners is murdered, and no one is prosecuted. Todd Melby: Did your microphone or recorder get damaged? It was directed and produced by filmmaker Barbara Kopple . Her presence, and the presence of her video camera, is believed to be a factor in decreasing the violence used against the strikers. Todd Melby: And what would you tell young filmmakers or young non-fiction folks? The Ohio Supreme Court today suspended a Cleveland attorney for two years for committing several ethical violations, including billing a client's mother twice for round trips to Youngstown to visit his client in prison when the man was in the local county jail.. Ted is the miner/husband/father Silas Kincaide and Holly is the wife/mom Ruby Kincaide. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. It was just like in the old days -- if the company kills a man, the company gets let off. Todd Melby: What was the scariest moment for you? While hes layin over in the hospital dying. [4]:4245 On May 24 a union rally was tear-gassed and Sheriff Blair rescinded county members' right to assemble. Alas, catastrophe awaited, this time in the booming 50s. What happened to Bill Bruner . They believed that the strikebreakers would be more hesitant to use violence against women. The incidents involved coal miners and union organizers on one side and coal firms and law enforcement officials on the other. Boy, "The Overthrow Them Governments" business must pay pretty good and the work looks fairly steady. She talks about hiding behind cars on the picket line for protection from the "gun thugs." She talks about a standoff against Basil Collins and the scabs and gun thugs. If you wasn't a gun thug, you was a union man. although I think he was mostly thinking of the assaults on character caused by an oppressive society like 1930s Germany rather than the assault on your character via the goodies you can buy if sell out. Stellar Skarsgard plays Warren Jacopovich, UMWA organizer. Eastover agreed to a speedy election for union representation at its High Splint mine in Evarts, about 10 miles from the Brookside mine. There followed a decade of strikes in the coalfields, often wildcat strikes by some 40,000 young members, many veterans of the war in Vietnam. An open shop allows union membership but does not mandate it. https://povmagazine.com/kingston-canadian-film-festival-announces-2023-line-up/. The miners lay in ambush for cars carrying company men, and shot at them. . [4]:39 The citizens of Harlan, for their part, lost any illusions they may have held about impartiality in law enforcement. After the railroad arrived in 1911 . Also, I had all these wonderful people that were putting up everything that they had for the right to have a union. Wages at these mines came into step with the rest of the nation. There were some minor physical attacks on scabs and police. Which side are you on? In March of 1974, the UMWA invited an independent group to investigate the strike. OVERVIEW. The song Which Side Are You On? became the anthem of a reborn United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) union in the 1930s, then an anthem for [], A journal of theory and strategy published by Jacobin, Taking Back Left Parties From the Brahmins, occupying a railroad track to halt a coal train, Miners and their families responded by occupying the railroad tracks. Also, in retrospect, we know that the film crew, embedded with the miners, were a shield against worse violence, though that role is never reflected upon in the film. The Park County Sheriff's Office, . <p>Mr. Miller attended a rally last Thursday after a parade in Harlan.The strikers received some of the highest strike benefits ever paid by the U.M.W.$80 a week for a single man, $90 for a couple and $100 for a family. Kopple trained in the cinema verit tradition as an intern for Albert and David Maysles on films such as SalesmanandGimme Shelterand later on the Vietnam activist filmsWinter SoldierandHearts and Minds. I saw people really standing up for what they believed in. A police captain said that the shooting had occurred after Mr. Jones and Mr. Bruner exchanged some angry words. Strikers exchanged gunfire with private guards and local law enforcement; strikebreakers were set upon and beaten. Anyone know of some others? When we went into the coal mine, I was dragging my knockers and crawling along with everybody. There are plenty of such careerists in movements nowadays. I've checked, and incredibly enough, it's the same person. Thompson and the Making of the New Left. Before its conclusion, an unknown number of miners, deputies and bosses would be killed, state and federal troops would occupy the county more than half a dozen times, two acclaimed folk singers would emerge, union membership would oscillate wildly and workers in the nation's most anti-labor coal county would ultimately be represented by a union. The owners of the mine, Eastover Coal Company, a subsidiary of Duke Power Company, refused to sign the new contracts, which would have established a UMWA local in Brookside. Subscribe today and get a yearlong print and digital subscription. The 1920s, a decade of defeat for American workers everywhere, left the UMWA in a shambles. Title cards throughout Harlan County, U.S.A. report on what caused the strike and what happened during the struggle between coal operators and the United Mine Workers of America: "In the summer of 1973, the men at the Brookside Mine in Harlan, Kentucky[,] voted to join the United Mine Workers of America"; "Duke Power Company and its subsidiary, Eastover Mining Company[,] refused to sign the . So he made his turn in a fairly short time Harlan County USA is one of my favorite movies. She talks about incidents of violence during the standoff. Eastover also hired prisoners to 'provide security' in and around the mine. Bobby Simpson, 79, has been blind for more than a half-century, but still managed to shovel coal. On April 1, Harlan County is 200 years old. written by Florence Reece in 1931 during strikes that earned the community the name 'Bloody Harlan.'. Barbara Kopple: Low coal, so people were crawling. </p> <p>Buy Gift Cards. . Bill was a 1961 Meade County High School graduate and a member of First Baptist Church Henryville. Billy Carroll Bruner, 39, Evarts, was formally charged yesterday with murder by State Police in the death of Lawrence Dean Jones, 23, Verda. Bill Harlan: Well, let's look back 100 years: Phylloxera at the end of the 19th century, the great earthquake in SF when a lot of wines were lost in the warehouses. Bruner joined LLNL in 2009, after retiring as a colonel from the United States Air . WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 (UPI) Striking mine workers and the Eastover Mining Company reached agreement today to end a 13month strike that had caused one death and economic hardship to the communities of Harlan County, Ky. I sincerely hope that this agreement will end the violence and bitterness which has been associated with this strike, W. J. Usery, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, said in announcing the agreement. It was the latest violent incident in Harlan County, long a scene of labor unrest. Get our print magazine for just $20 a year. The rank-and-file group Miners for Democracy (MFD) was organized at the funeral. Walter Russell Mead is another. Why, Freedom House even criticizes the U.S. for not living up to its own principles! The 1973 UMWA Convention in Pittsburgh was a celebration of workers democracy and workers power. Todd Melby: Wow. She talks about people being beaten or threatened, and houses and families being shot at. Barbara Kopple: Harlan County, USA; that was my first ever film that I did on my own. Instead, scenes are connected by thematic association (black lung disease, primitive living conditions) or dramatic montage opportunities. Todd Melby: Did you figure that out in the edit room? How to Market Your Business with Webinars. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. The strikers received some of the highest strike benefits ever paid by the U.M.W.$80 a week for a single man, $90 for a couple and $100 for a family. They say in Harlan County, there are no neutrals there My parents really helped a lot. In 1959 when Lewis retired, the union had been reduced to 180,000 members, and the southern coalfields, Harlan included, were non-union once again. Nationalism, the new issue of Jacobin is out now. All Rights Reserved. 6 Where is the safest place to live in Kentucky? New machinery would transform underground mining but at the expense of the coal miners themselves. [4]:46 They operated under Sheriff J. H. Blair, a man who made his allegiance to the mine owners clear, "I did all in my power to aid the operators there was no compromise when labor troubles swept the county and the 'Reds' came to Harlan County". Violence continued against the workers and community. Bloody Harlan. I worked on other people's films doing sound and editing, but . Within 3 weeks a tentative deal had been reached between the UMW and the majority of mine owners. Congress then passed a federal bill that assisted all afflicted miners. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". Mr. Jones, who leaves a 16yearold widow, was shot In the head by a shotgun blast from short range. With contributions by John dos Passos, Samuel Ornitz and others, Dreiser produced a report called Harlan Miners Speak: Report on Terrorism in the Kentucky Coal Fields. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. In addition to his other wholesome activities, he's on the board of trustees of Freedom House, along with other freedom-lovers like Kenneth Adelman and Malcolm Forbes. Crawling kingsnake (6:09) Louise (4:24) Poor boy a long way from home (4:09) Stay all night (5:44) Going down south (3:49) Coal black Mattie (3:48) Do the romp (5:01) Sad days, lo Veterans have proven to be an asset to the Laboratory and bring a unique background and skillset in service to the nation. In Harlan County there wasn't no neutral. Todd Melby: Oh my God, yes. By then, a powerful UMWA represented 400,000 working miners, promising safety at work and an escape from the poverty that had consumed generation after generation. The Harlan County coal miners campaigned and fought to . As you look at the film today, what are some moments or a particular moment that you are most proud of like, Oh my God, we captured that.. Updated November 23, 2021 12:21 PM. On top of that, we learn later, the . These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. Another factor in the strike was the presence of Barbara Kopple, a journalist who made a documentary Harlan County, USA about the struggle. On February 16, 1931, to maximize profits, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. I probably still am. Songwriter Florence Reece reported, Sheriff J. H. Blair and his men came to our house in search of Sam that's my husband he was one of the union leaders. My songs always goes to the underdog to the worker. The women got a car that they called the Booster Car, which was a big station wagon and they pushed it across the railroad tracks so that the strikebreakers with Basil Collins couldnt get through to get to the mine. Bloody Harlan. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. 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