177. Mother Jones in West Virginia Coal Fields Making Speeches to Excite Miners

Empathy Media Lab

On June 20, 1920, Mother Jones spoke on the steps of the Williamson County Courthouse in West Virginia as a grand jury deliberated on the shooting between mine of Matewan, West Virginia and the Baldwin-Felts detectives who were terrorizing the people in the service of the Stone Mountain Coal Company to increase the profits of plutocrats like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, and Mellon, and against the United Mine Workers of America driving unionization throughout the land.

The Associated Press wrote the next day “Mother Jones” in West Virginia Coal Fields Making Speeches to Excite Miners.

EMLab filmed a reenactment of Mother Jones famous speech in Matewan, West Virginia during U.S. Labor Day weekend 2021, which marked the 100 year anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain, which was part of the West Virginia Mine Wars. The battle was the largest armed insurrection in the U.S. since the Civil War. The sacrifices of those miners and their families provides an important history of courageously standing up and facing tyrannical men of murderous intent.

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