Coal miners fight for their rights in Atlanta author’s historical novel ‘Rednecks’

Coal miners are forced to work in conditions “more dangerous than those of the armed forces of the Great War, are not paid in legal tender but in company certificates, housed not in personal homes but in prison camps.” ‘company’ and receive no compensation in the event of death or mutilation. Any attempt to improve conditions through unionization results in dismissal, which leads to eviction, affecting the miner’s entire family.

Two of Brown’s most endearing characters experience the nightmare of deportation, illustrating the personal cost of America’s “coal wars.” Dr. Domit “Moo” Muhanna is a character based on Brown’s great-grandfather. Both are Kentucky doctors who emigrated from Lebanon in the 19th century. Dr. Moo makes a house call to drain the dropsy (edema) from the swollen feet of Miss Beulah Hugham, a 70-year-old widow who spends her days mending socks on the porch of her grandson’s company cabin. son.

One rainy afternoon, a member of the Baldwin-Felts Agency – civilian detectives serving as security guards at a coal company – picks up Miss Beulah in her rocking chair and throws her out into the street. His grandson, “Big” Frank Hugham, a veteran of the First World War, was fired for joining the United Mine Workers of America union and the expulsion was in retaliation. Dr. Moo and the Hughams are fictional characters interacting with individuals and events that Brown has drawn from the annals of history, like the Baldwin-Felts agents, and imbued with personality and vitality.

Animosity rises in the town of Matewan when Police Chief Sid Hatfield, a historical figure and supporter of his coal-mining neighbors, is involved in a shooting now known as the Matewan Massacre. When the dust settles, Matewan’s mayor and two Baldwin-Felts officers are dead, and Sid is arrested for the murders, drawing a hard line in the “us versus them” mentality that fuels what’s to come.

As Brown’s narrative continues, another real-life figure emerges: Mary “Mother” Jones, a famous union organizer and activist known as “the most dangerous woman in America” ​​because of her success in organizing miners against coal companies.

Over 80 years old when she appears in Brown’s tale, Mother Jones is exhausted from fighting and feels “irritable, thin and fleshy, in need of rest.” Nevertheless, she persisted and rallied the laid-off miners to join forces with members of neighboring unions and fight for their rights. Yet the legal power of the coal company stops any attempt by miners to improve their living conditions.

No one feels this worse than Big Frank, as he faces far more catastrophic consequences for his union activism than his expulsion. Detained by the police, he was not arrested but incarcerated in the basement of the prison where he was beaten by Baldwin-Felts agents. They drive Big Frank into the woods, beat him again and leave him for dead. But he survives and continues to play a central role as one of the “Bad Seven”, infantry veterans of the Great War who lead the resistance.

As tensions escalate between striking miners and greedy coal companies, Dr. Moo, Miss Beulah, Big Frank, Chief Hatfield and Mother Jones journey through the historic events leading up to the Battle of Blair Mountain. Brown also goes through a number of other point-of-view characters and occasionally returns to the collective voice to tell his story of survival.

One thing that remains constant despite the change in perspective is the violence and brutality inflicted on coal miners and their families. In the author’s note, Brown writes that the term redneck was “originally used in popular media to denigrate a working-class uprising in Appalachia as backward, uneducated, and dangerous.” . Nothing could have highlighted the division between American citizens more than the deployment of the American army to Blair Mountain to stop the rebellion.

“Rednecks” ends with a blazing showdown as ex-military men Big Frank and Bad Seven are forced to choose between shooting active military personnel or abandoning their cause. Taylor Brown creates a restrictive environment in which minors are forced to decide how much they are willing to give up humanity to continue fighting for their rights.

“The rednecks”

by Taylor Brown

St. Martin’s Press, 320 pages, $29

Taylor Brown. In conversation with Chuck Reece. 7 p.m. on May 28. Cash bar. Presented by Writers at the Wrecking Bar and A Cappella Books. The Marianna Room at Wrecking Bar Brewpub, 292 Moreland Ave., Atlanta. 404-681-5128, capappellabooks.com