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chapter 12 Conclusion We’re being sacrificed here for energy for the rest of the world. . . . Why should we give up everything we own for somebody else to have cheap energy? For a world of people that’s already pampered to death. It’s the injustice of it. Honey, this is discrimination —and I don’t use that word lightly, either. —pauline canterberry (pp. 38–39) The twelve women whose stories fill this book have watched their communities , their mountains, their streams, their homes, their families, and their own health be ravaged by destruction related directly to the coal industry. All of these women have decided to take a stand against the injustices they have witnessed , despite the numerous barriers they have encountered to speaking out against the coal industry. Like many other local, grassroots movements fighting for environmental justice throughout the nation, working-class women have been the ones to initiate and lead the struggle for justice in Central Appalachia. Motivations for Action: Motherhood and Beyond Much of the research on women’s grassroots activism has found that workingclass women often attribute their social-movement involvement to their roles as mothers. Motherhood is called on both as a justification and as a resource for environmental justice activism (Krauss 1993; Brown and Ferguson 1995; Culley and Angelique 2003; Peeples and Deluca 2006). Parallel findings can be seen among the women activists in this book. One of the most prevalent themes throughout the narratives is that activism against the injustices of the coal industry is an extension of these women’s identities—and obligations—as mothers and grandmothers. For instance, Patty Sebok explains her decision to fight overweight, speeding coal trucks as being largely motivated by a fear for her children’s safety: I didn’t want [the coal trucks] driving through my community like they were doing. How would they feel if I came to their community in a big tank like that with their kids out playing or trying to learn how to drive and run down the road like that—how would they like it? . . . I thought, “What have I got to lose?” They’re going to kill me or my kids on the road, and it wasn’t just in my hollow. Anytime I would do my errands it was just very, very dangerous. I was just, you know, a housewife and a mother doing my thing, taking care of my home and my kids (p. 97). Similarly, when Lorelei Scarboro recounts how she explained to her sonin -law (a coal miner for Massey Energy) why she feels her activism is so important, she reveals justifying it through her desire to protect her granddaughter ’s access to clean drinking water: . . . I said, “The reason I do what I do is, when I look at [my granddaughter], I try to think about the quality of water she’s going to have to drink when she’s of child-bearing age. What I do is about the water. It’s not against mining, it’s for the water. . . . You can’t look at her and not think about the quality of water that she’s going to have.” That really, really helped him to understand—because we can live without electricity, but we’ve got three days without water. She’s got three days without safe drinking water (p. 131). Some women activists, like Maria Gunnoe, express a great deal of anger toward the coal companies for compromising their ability to adequately protect their children from harm. For these women, this anger becomes a motivating force, driving them to fight back. In her narrative, Maria vividly describes her daughter’s birthday in June 2003, when her home was severely flooded because of runoff from a mountaintop-removal coal mine behind her house. Five acres of her land washed away that night, and the raging water nearly took her house as well. As Maria relates, “It was a night that I will never forget. If I live to be a hundred years old, I’ll never forget that. . . . I literally thought we were gonna die in this house” (pp. 12–13). The psychological trauma the flood caused her children served as Maria’s call to action: There is tremendous fear when it rains . . . my daughter went through a, hey, I feel safe in calling it a posttraumatic stress disorder. She would set up at night—if it was raining or thundering, or any weather alerts or anything like that going...

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