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7 An Appalachian Reawakening: The Black Lung Association, Miners for Democracy, and the New Feminism Black lungs, full of coal dust Coal miners must breathe it or bust. Black lungs, gasping for breath With black lungs we are choking to death. Song written by West Virginia coal miner James E. Wyatt For years miners had been beaten down. People thought we couldn’t organize, that we were scared and dumb. But we showed them. And we showed that SOB Tony Boyle, who praised the company after Farmington. Retired coal miner Lewis “Pops” Coleman, of Disabled Miners and Widows of West Virginia The election of Richard Milhaus Nixon as president and Arch Alfred Moore Jr. as governor in 1968 signaled a turn to the right and away from the liberal programs of the 1960s, but the period of the late 1960s and early 1970s nevertheless brought about a rare expression of grassroots political and social activism in Appalachia and unusual successes for those who resisted the conventional wisdom and traditional elites and sought to address some of the problems of era. Though the War on Poverty continued for a time in a modified fashion, much of the reform impulse of 1968 and afterward sprang from the grassroots: active and retired coal miners, their wives, disgruntled small property owners, and others. The experiences gained by indigenous community leaders during the community action 259 An Appalachian Reawakening programs of the 1960s helped to maintain the energy behind some of the movements. VISTA also continued to be active, and former VISTA members and Appalachian Volunteers remained in the state, lending their experience, commitment, and passion to public interest organizations and to help grassroots movements. West Virginia reformers continued to derive their greatest motivation from the dire consequences of the coal industry’s technological revolution. Beyond West Virginia’s unique Appalachian circumstances , West Virginians also reacted to the issues of race, gender, and the Vietnam War that stirred the nation. Just as the Mingo County Fair Elections Committee had sought, with mixed results, to tamper with entrenched political corruption but found the old order remarkably resilient, so other reformers foundered on the rocks of reaction. Doors began to open for women to play a larger role in politics and other matters. Taken together, the movements of this period represent a moment in West Virginia and Appalachian history when popular forces challenged the dominant economic and political powers with some striking successes. In the end, though the reformers fell short of achieving all that they sought, they had demonstrated the power of organization and the myth of Appalachian fatalism.1 “How Not to Do It”: The Waning of the Poverty War Though some of the impetus for grassroots action from War on Poverty programs survived the election of 1968, poverty warriors understood that funding community action programs now would be even more difficult, and they would have to seek a lower profile and to cultivate private sources of revenue. Huey Perry continued for a time after the election as director of the Mingo County Economic Opportunity Commission, but he knew the future looked unpromising . He later wrote: “There seemed good reason to fear for the survival of the Mingo County EOC, which had become the rural model for liberals in the Democratic Administration, and now with the Nixon Administration would probably be regarded as the prime example of ‘how not to do it.’”2 Even with the revelations of political corruption in Mingo and the election of a Republican governor, Perry’s nemesis, Mingo Democrat boss Noah Floyd, still wielded enough power to be named chairman of the state senate elections committee and to see 260 An Appalachian Reawakening to it that the state Department of Employment Security named his brother, George Floyd, to head the Work Incentive program in Mingo.3 Perry’s premonition that the Mingo model for community action would no longer be in favor in Washington turned out, of course, to be right. With Republicans in control in Washington, OEO, administered by former Republican congressman and future secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld (and with the assistance of future vice president Richard Cheney), now criticized poverty agencies that had most successfully met the mandate of “maximum feasible participation of the poor.” Such activities, the agency now claimed, only split communities and undermined well-established local institutions. Under the guidance of the new regime, the agency emphasized effective management, reducing the former emphasis on participation of the poor. Moreover, the agency warned that demonstrations...

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