On this day Labor History the year was 1920.
That year a national coal strike had won unionized miners a twenty-seven percent pay raise.
But the miners in West Virginia were not in the union.
The United Mine Workers decided to launch an intensive campaign to organize this important coal mining region.
It took courage to join the union. If the coal operators found out, you would be fired and thrown out of company housing.
And so Today in labor history detectives from the infamous Baldwin-Felts company came to Matewan to evict miners who worked for the Stone Mountain Coal Company.
The local police chief, Sid Hatfield, supported the workers.
He showed up where the detectives were eating dinner, with a warrant for the detectives’ arrest.
The detectives quickly produced their own warrant for Sid Hatfield’s arrest.
The two sides stood in the street in a stand-off. Then, suddenly, a shot rang out.
Miners dueled with the coal operators hired guns.
When the smoke cleared seven detectives and two miners were killed.
Among the dead was Albert Felts, one of the detectives who had earlier participated in the Ludlow Massacre in Colorado.
Sid Hatfield survived the gun battle and became a national folk hero.
The next year he was assassinated for his role in Matewan.
10,000 angry miners took up arms, in what has been called the largest insurrection since the Civil War.
The fighting culminated in the Battle of Blair Mountain where an estimated one million rounds were shot between the miners and the companies’ hired guns, before the US Army intervened and ended the battle.
In 1987, John Sayles directed an acclaimed film based on the events in West Virginia.
Matewan became a classic must see film about the labor movement.
Listen to our clips at www.LaborHistoryin2.com
Labor History in 2:00 brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and The Rick Smith Show