Anh-Thu Truong TIAS 305 Dr. Alex Miller Reflection #1 Dr. Charles Keeney- The Road to Blair Mountain Dr. Charles Keeney or Chuck Keeney came to our meeting as friendly as his southern voice. Chuck Kenney is an Assistant Professor of History at West Virginia Community and Technical College. He wrote a book about a bloodiest fight between coal miners in southern West Virginia and the people who stand for coal industry. He is also the activist who spent several years to protect the Blair Mountain, the place where that fight happened in 1921, a century ago. And by doing that, which he says, “using history for successful activism”, Chuck and his supporters have taken back the stolen story of labor history, specifically the coal miners’ story in Virginia. Authorities and coal companies wanted this battle to be “out of the textbook”, and they want to destroy everything that related to this event. The good deaths that built Virginia like it is today about to be forgotten. In his first chapter in which he named “Fighting for a Battlefield”, is almost sound unreasonable to me for the first sight: fight for a battlefield? How did that happen? However, the story it tells is worth to haunt my mind as I read along. Somehow, I think history has its own way to reveal itself to the world, no matter how the untold truth has been relentlessly covered, and Chuck’s story is one example. Chuck’s destiny is to complete his great-grandfather’s destiny, Frank Kenney, who was pioneer in coal miner union in early 1900s’. In 1921, thousands of coal miners with red bandanas fought against authority, now, Chuck and his strikes over the mountain also fight the power of the coal industry, whose may use violence legally or secretly to erase the rights to raise voices against them. Chuck smiled bitterly while telling us about those companies’ ruse to reign Virginia, literally, including people’s live: stealing land by laws, and by politic tricks. Right now, as he told us, the main work force in Virginia still coal miners (low wage, bad health conditions) because authorities promise green energy, green work but never have the actual plan to proceed those steps and make it hard for workers who want to change career. Thousands of acres would be destroyed for a coal mine, and it would pollute the air as well as disrupt the area’s ecosystem. In Vietnam where I grew up, I’ve seen these problems before. Nonetheless, I never thought that in a country of freedom like the United States, there is a brutal truth about powerlessness when one cannot freely choose the life they want; instead, that freedom, always needs a good fight. These control and destroy history issues will be remained for a long time unless activists like Chuck are trying to alleviate the problems. Chuck kept telling us, the listeners, that we should never give up protecting a good thing like he did, just keep being persistent, seeking help, raise our voices. As a good result from motivators and activists like Chuck, in 2018, teachers were wearing red bandanas to honor Appalachian miners who supported unionizing. Those strikes were good examples to educate, to attract attention from media. I came here three years ago, and for that reason, I don’t completely know all about union’s history here, but after this interesting meeting, I would invest more time to learn about labor force and hopefully, I can equip myself enough to respect the history.
