ongs for Justice | Reel World String Band

Story by Jillian Randel

In 1977, a group of twenty-five women in Kentucky gathered their instruments to perform for the International Day of Women. Of that group, four women (later joined by a fifth) decided to keep stringing and singing, playing traditional tunes incorporating country, swing, blues and jazz. It was the birth of the Reel World String Band.

“As we began to develop a repertoire, we realized that many of the songs we sang were pretty sexist,” said Karen Jones, the band’s fiddler. “Our own song writing sort of evolved out of a lack of material on contemporary issues.”

The Reel World String band worked closely with the Highlander Center, an organization based out of Tennessee that works with grassroots movements; an experience that helped to politicize Reel World’s work.

Inspired by a group of women living on Cranks Creek in Harlan County, Ky., Futrell wrote a song called “Cranks Creek” about the destructive strip mining happening above their homes and the ensuing flooding this small community suffered.

“We have seen the evolution of coal mining through our songs,” said Jones, recalling one written by Futrell in 1986 about the injustices of broad form deeds (documents that establish that coal companies owned the subsurface rights of people’s lands). Two years after the song was written, 82% of Kentucky residents voted in favor of an amendment to broad form deeds which would protect landowners from strip mining.

To this day, the band sings about mountaintop removal and other environmental issues. In a recent song, titled “Who owns Appalachia,” the band’s banjo player Sue Massek writes, “These hills hold my soul; King Coal owns my land; Oil barrens own King Coal; It’s time we make our stand.” Lyrics of activism articulate a lot of Reel World’s style.

“Certainly the arts have been very active in trying to keep these issues in the forefront so there is constant pressure on the coal companies,” said Jones.

Although Reel World taps into more sensitive issues in Appalachia, they do so with grace.

“Sometimes people don’t know how to define us when they book us for a place to play,” said Futrell. “When we start playing, the audience wonders what we’re going to do with instruments that look like a man-band. We usually win them over even if they don’t like what we’re singing about. We don’t antagonize them— we inform them in a gentle manner.

“In the early days as a band, people often approached us after a show and asked, ‘What do your husbands think?’” Futrell laughs.

“Back then we had an agent who tried to portray the novelty of an ‘all-girl string band,’” adds Jones. “He wanted to make money off us, but we weren’t really commercially viable. We had a bigger connection to our community and politics.”

“When you need to make money you have to do a lot of things you don’t want to,” continued Jones. “If we wanted to go commercial we would have had to give up being socially conscious and we were never willing to do that.”

“Also,” adds Futrell, “It probably wouldn’t be as much fun.”

To learn more about Reel World String Band, visit their website at reelworldstringband.com

Appalachian History | Women Blazing Trails in Song and Verse

By Jason Reagan

Ask most people what they think when they hear the term “Appalachian Women in Music” and the likely response may be “Coal Miner’s Daughter/Loretta Lynn” or maybe their eyes will brighten as they shout “Dolly Parton!”

And, although Lynn and Parton paved the way for a generation of musicians from the hollers and mountains to the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, the deeper traditions echoing down the Appalachian mountain range over the decades whispers a rich tapestry of many women making their songs heard despite the barren soil from which it often came.

“I think there were probably more socioeconomic factors that kept women from the forefront of history in Appalachian folk music than those that brought them to the front,” Mark Freed, a North Carolina-based folklorist said.

For many folk singers of Appalachia – both men and women – their musical muse spawned not from light-hearted days spent idly by a mountain stream, but rather from the depths of the coal pits with songs as gloomy and combustible as the coal dust that inspired their lyrics.

“I think the women songwriters from the coal camps were forced to the forefront,” Freed said. “They were the ones at home with starving children, dealing with company thugs, and witnessing the atrocities of coal camps.”

Such was the genesis of Aunt Molly Jackson.

Born in 1880, the daughter of a bankrupt grocer and union activist in Clay County, Ky., Jackson felt the black arm of the mines at a young age when her father had to close his store due to the failure and abandonment of a nearby coal mine.

The Appalachian mines that robbed her father of his livelihood, also stole everything she held dear, killing her first husband in a 1917 accident and blinding both her brother and father in another incident. To cope with such horrors, Jackson turned to her great-grandmother’s rich folk music heritage.

Such loss and her seemingly natural sense of justice shaped Jackson’s evolution into one of the century’s best known protest singers.

“She was at the height of her glory when she was giving someone she thought was no good a hard time,” recalled Jim Garland, Jackson’s half-brother and fellow musician, in his autobiography, Welcome the Traveler Home.

“These trouble-making instincts led her to write many a fine song,” he said.

By 1930, Jackson’s songs began to take shape as a key factor in bringing deplorable mining conditions in places like Harlan, Ky., to light.

Songs like “Poor Miner’s Farewell” and “Kentucky Miner’s Wife” brought the plight of the miner to the attention of a wider — some would say national — audience.

The combination of her great-grandmother’s pure folk roots and her flaming internal combustion to right wrongs launched Jackson into greater heights of fame when she recorded her first album in New York City in 1931.

Her work inspired a generation of younger folk singers and later led to a folk music revival in Greenwich Village; it also lit a bright torch for the burgeoning labor movements of post-Depression America.

“She came to be perceived by intellectuals of the time as an ‘authentic’ representative of the American folk,” said Alexis Luckey, a folklorist at the University of Virginia, writing in a 2005 article. Almost synonymous with folk music are the equally melodious names, Maybelle and Sarah Carter.

Born in the mountains of Scott County, Va., the Carters – along with Sarah’s husband A.P.—recorded more than 250 songs between the late 1920s and 1941.

“Maybelle’s ‘Carter Scratch’ style on the guitar became one of the most mimicked styles across the region,” Freed said.

“The harmony singing of Sarah and Maybelle was extremely influential,” he added, noting a pantheon of other folk music goddesses who helped shape a generation of later musicians; pioneers like Hazel Dickens, Jean Ritchie, Lulu Belle and Ola Belle Reed.

The list goes on, but amid these triumphs, perhaps the most poignant aspect in the development of Appalachian women of music was the heart-wrenching poverty and heartbreak that often consumed regions of Appalachia through unfair labor practices, treacherous mining conditions and general exploitation.

“Women were backed into corners where speaking out and writing songs were the only ways to try and overcome their situations,” Freed said.

Here’s hoping future generations of songwriters never forgot those dark corners where a little lyrical light still shown.

Kathy Mattea | Coal

Written by Kaley Bellanti

Kathy Mattea is a Grammy-winning singer, songwriter and social activist from South Charleston, W.Va. On her album, Coal, Mattea compiled historic coal-mining songs in honor of her place and her people.

“Coal is a re-education for the listeners, a record that reshapes the way we think about music,” said Mattea.

Both of Mattea’s grandfathers were coal-miners and her own parents grew up in coal camps. The idea for Coal was born after the Sago Mine Disaster, when 12 miners were killed. This disaster reminded her of the Farmington Disaster during her childhood, when a staggering 78 miners were killed. “I thought ‘now is the time to do these songs.’ Sago was the thing that brought it all back to the surface,” said Mattea.

Mattea said in a recent National Public Radio interview, “My goal was to tell the story and to open up a window to people who have not heard these songs before and hopefully they might find some accessibility there.”

Visit: mattea.com

Kellin Watson | The Evolution of Mountain Music

Written by Alli Marshall

Mountain music isn’t disappearing, it’s evolving.

Singer/songwriter Kellin Watson, from Black Mountain is proof. She’s descended from Appalachian musicians (third-cousin to bluegrass legend Doc Watson), her dad taught banjo and fiddle, and Watson herself started playing guitar and writing songs at 13.

Her sound is informed by jazz, blues and pop as much as by roots music. In fact, Watson’s resume includes singing on a Japanese Metal album and opening for country artist Jessica Simpson, as well as, playing Black Mountain’s Lake Eden Arts Festival. She’s just completed her fourth album, the soulful “Halo Of Blue,” due out this spring.

Visit: kellinwatson.com

Marie Daly | Founder of Ivy Academy

By Jesse Wood

In the fall of 2009, Marie Daly founded Ivy Academy, a unique and successful tuition-free charter school outside of Chattanooga, Tenn.

After teaching English for 20 years and witnessing apathetic students, she knew she had to do something different to help children regain their natural curiosity for the world around them, as well as excel in school.

“I always wanted to teach outdoors in more of an integrated thematic curriculum,” she said. “I couldn’t find [a school] like this, so I created one.”

Compared to traditional public schools, the class sizes are smaller, typically 10 – 12 students, and class periods run longer.

Over 85 percent of Ivy Academy’s students are considered low-income. Studies and reports often correlate socio-economics with success in school, but Ivy Academy proves to be an exception to the rule.

In their first year, the school reported 83 percent of students were proficient or advanced in Algebra 1, and 96 percent of students were proficient or advanced in English.

“We have some kids that hated school, now they really like school,” said Daley. “We have kids that had chronic absentee problems and they don’t have it here. Kids that never got good grades before are passing here and doing well.”

The public high school is adjacent to 7,000 acres of protected wilderness in Hamilton County and the curriculum places an emphasis on the environment. The staff and students recycle their waste, and students spend at least half of their class time outdoors.

“There is a real movement for education reform. I think we have to learn how to think differently, and the environment is very important,” she said. “Sustainability and going to alternative sources of power is the wave of the future. You can either get on the bus or get left behind.”

Theresa Burriss | Literary Luminaries

By Jillian Randel

Growing up in a matriarchal family, Theresa Burriss was surrounded by strong female Appalachians, igniting a passion for studying— and later educating about— women’s issues in Appalachia.

As a professor at Radford University, Burriss is in the process of transforming her Appalachian Women Activists project into a multi-media performance called Sounds of Stories Dancing. For the project, she interviewed over 40 female activists across central and southern Appalachia.

“The performance is coming out of an oral tradition,” said Burriss. “I am using some of these interviews and extracting excerpts out- there are themes of migration and strength of character of Appalachians. It’s very abstract and similar to a dream montage and political social commentary.”

She will be collaborating with her colleague and friend at Radford University, Deborah McLaughlin, with whom she has previously worked on a dance piece about mountaintop removal coal mining.

Musicians Don Hall and Bud Bennett will be creating original work for the piece as well. Artist Susan Stryke will be creating the set design.

“Appalachia is known as a patriarchal society,” said Burriss. “I’m all about providing space for those voices that don’t always get space.”

Burriss recently received a grant to write her first children’s book, The Country Store on White Oak Grove, which she will begin working on this year. She is the director of RU’s Learning Assistance and Resource Center, director of Appalachia Regional Studies Center and Chair of the Appalachian Studies. Her areas of interest are American, Affrilachian and Appalachian literature.

Joyce Barry | Up and Coming Historian

Compiled by Jillian Randel

In 1998, Joyce Barry visited Larry Gibson’s camp on Kayford Mountain and saw mountaintop removal for the first time. It inspired her to spend years researching and interviewing people living in the so-called coalfields.

“Coming of age in West Virginia, the beautiful mountains that surround us were inextricably linked to our history, culture and sense of place in the world,” said Barry.

Her forthcoming book, Standing Ground: Gender and Environmental Justice in the Age of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining, is a study of women’s environmental activism to stop mountaintop removal mining.

“Women’s organizing helped transform this issue from a local to a national, and international, one,” said Barry. “Ordinary people— Appalachian women— can make real differences in the world and they are doing so in Appalachia with their critiques of the coal industry and their efforts in trying to build a more sustainable Appalachia. They are my heroes, the people that I look up to and try to pattern my life after.”

Joyce Barry is currently a visiting professor of women’s studies at Hamilton College in N.Y. She teaches classes on the intersections between gender and environmentalism.

Pat Beaver | Investing Energy and Research in Appalachia’s Development

By Anna Oaks

Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains on the campus of Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., the Center for Appalachian Studies develops, coordinates and facilitates curricula and programs related to the Appalachian region.

Patricia Beaver, a professor of anthropology who earned her doctorate from Duke University in 1976, is the director of the Center for Appalachian Studies. She has conducted research in Appalachia and China, focusing on community, family and public policy and issues related to gender, class and ethnicity.

Beaver was project director of the landmark Appalachian Land Ownership Study (1979-1980), credited with contributing to the emergency of participatory action research in the United States and the establishment of the interdisciplinary field of Appalachian Studies.

Her recent research is concerned with cultural and ethnic diversity in Appalachia, with special focuses on African American and Jewish communities in Asheville, N.C., Melungeon history and identity and on rehistoricizing gender and ethnicity.

The Center for Appalachian Studies encourages individuals, including students, faculty and the public, to invest more of themselves in the region than the simple economic exchanges derived from studying, working and relaxing here, and by doing so, adding to the human capital available for the region’s development.

Visit: appstudies.appstate.edu

Kari Gunter-Seymour | The Art of Empowerment

By Jillian Randel

Three years ago, Kari Gunter-Seymour was sitting at her monthly potluck supper surrounded by her closest female friends, when she had a vision.

“People think of an Appalachian woman and look down on her,” said Gunter-Seymour. “I started thinking about women and art out there needing some support. I wondered what their stories were and that prodded me to put together an exhibit.”

Thus began the annual women of Appalachia Art Exhibit and its sister project, Women Speak— a night dedicated entirely to spoken art. What began as a five women exhibit and four person poetry reading evolved into a 27 artist show last year and is already promising greater participation for 2011.

Gunter-Seymour strives to include less-traditional artists and women with fewer resources to create art.

“Some of the women in our area have not had the same opportunities as others,” said Gunter-Seymour. “I was a single woman going to school and a lot of people were helping me. We have women that don’t have that support or encouragement.”

This led to the involvement of the Sisters Recovery Quilt project, in conjunction with the local health recovery program.

“We have women who need to be safe from domestic violence and rape and things that we don’t like to talk about but are happening all around us,” said Seymour. “Last year they made two beautiful quilts that were just wrenching in their message.”

This year the art exhibit will feature work from the Clothesline Project, a nationwide project that supports women speaking out against domestic violence and rape.

“It is hard to learn about what these women have been through knowing that they are 2nd and 3rd generation victims of these experiences and now they have the opportunity to leave that life,” said Gunter-Seymour.

“Not all women that suffer this are from under-served areas,” she said. “We have very wealthy women also suffering that need courage to speak out. That’s what we hope this project will initiate.”

Unique to the exhibit is the diversity of mediums used— among them metal, enamol, acrylic, water color, pencil and ink drawings, clay, photography and fiber pieces.

Winsome Chunnu— assistant director of the Multicultural Center at Ohio University and curator of the art gallery— worked closely with Gunter-Seymour to develop the idea for the exhibit and helping the women secure a spot at the Ohio State art gallery.

This year’s Women Speak event will be held on May 12 from 6-8 p.m. in the university’s main theater.

“I think there is a lot less opportunity for spoken art than visual,” said Gunter-Seymour. “We are in a time where people aren’t speaking anymore— they are emailing and tweeting. People are using their fingers and not their voices. It is more important than ever to remind people of spoken word.”

The Women of Appalachia exhibit and Women Speak has empowered a whole new group of artists. The show will exhibit April 1 through June 10, 2011. The opening reception will be held April 8 from 6-9 p.m.

Lucy Morgan | Weaving a Community Craft School

By Alli Marshall

When Lucy Morgan stepped off a train in Penland, N.C. in 1920, ready to work as a teacher at the Appalachian School, no one knew that she would one day lay the foundation for one of the most well-known craft schools on the east Coast.

Inspired by weaving classes at Berea College in Kentucky, Morgan decided to teach western North Carolina mountain women to weave as a means of income. As the popularity of the weaving collective spread, Morgan was able to secure government funding and provide some program instruction.

Morgan’s success attracted the attention of Craft Revival leaders like weaving expert Edward Worst, who suggested adding a pottery production to the weaving program and, in 1928, the cottage industry duo was named Penland Weavers and Potters.

Penland Weavers morphed into Penland School of Handicrafts in 1929, offering training for artisans in a quickly expanding variety of traditional and contemporary craft disciplines, with a goal, says the school’s webpage, “to support creative traditions and build community through instruction in craft.”

Even during the Great Depression, Morgan was adding programs at Penland like chair-seating, vegetable dyeing and spinning. She was named the Southern Mountain Handicraft Guild representative to the International Exhibition of Folk Arts in Berne, Switzerland in 1934; by the 1940s visitors from Canada, Alaska, Peru and China were visiting Penland to learn about crafts and cottage industries.

Today, the Penland School of Crafts is a nationally recognized center for craft education offering short-term workshops, a resident artist program and an exhibiting gallery space.

According to her own memoirs, Lucy Morgan never left the Western Carolina mountains for any length of time during her life (and she lived to be older than 90!). Morgan’s story is well-documented in Western Carolina University’s project, “Craft Revival: Shaping Western North Carolina Past and Present.” Morgan remained at Penland until 1962.

Sharman Chapman Crane | Heritage Quilt Project

Written by Jillian Randel

Two years ago Sharman Chapman-Crane held a meeting to start a Heritage Quilt project. She had seen quilts decorating the countryside in other states and decided to bring that to her Letcher County community.

“My idea was to put them near community and senior citizens centers, but it has gone way beyond that,” said Chapman-Crane. “Schools, parks, businesses and individuals are putting them up. It’s been pretty amazing to see.”

Her community has created over 80 squares ranging from 2 by 2 feet to 8 by 8 feet.

The county festival committee is talking about making a brochure and map of the quilt locations for visitors to follow around.

The quilt project- now in 20 states- was started by a woman in Ohio and was originally intended for the sides of barns.

“Other counties have applied for grants and had professional artists doing it,” said Chapman-Crane. “Ours is entirely volunteer basis. Also unique is that here we have a strong quilt heritage, but not enough barns so we have them hanging in many places.”

“People just love it and it has been a real unifying thing,” said Chapman-Crane.

By Jamie Goodman

My grandmother was a true Appalachian mountain woman.

She stood a mere 5 feet 2 inches, but she was as tall as a tree in my eyes. Her skin was weathered by years of working on the farm; her eyes were water-blue, and her hands scarred and tough. Her back was hunched from years of bending to tend the garden, chop and stack wood, carry water and wash laundry by hand.

She could grab a hot pan of yeast rolls out of the oven without using a towel and carry 60-pound bales of hay on her back to feed the cattle. She crocheted small white ornaments, using sugar water to shape the thread into angels and delicate lace teacups. She mended fences, chased off snakes and sewed gorgeous patchwork quilts from scraps of fabric and my grandfather’s old shirts and ties.

She was a midwife, and would walk miles to help the country doctors deliver babies. She knew the plants in the woods, how to make herbal teas and poultices for croup. She often tended sick neighbors when the doctor couldn’t come. She took care of the animals, one time using her own hands to turn a breached calf in a birthing cow.

She ate country ham nearly every morning of her life, and baked the best biscuits I have ever tasted. Her name was Virginia, but we called her Nanny. She was humble to the point of being self-effacing, always put others before herself and faithfully kept the family Bible updated with new births. She saw the ocean only one time in her entire life.

My grandmother was in her mid-eighties when she stopped tending the farm, 93 when she died in 2002. At her funeral, the pastor spoke of her as though she were the last of the real mountain women, and at the time I believed him. But after researching the amazing women for this issue, I know for a fact this is not true.

While the women of today may not have to be as versed in the art of every-woman-on-the-farm like my grandmother, they are as equally if not more amazing in their contributions to our region. I wish we had enough space in this issue to include all of the spectacular, deserving Appalachian mothers, grandmothers, health care providers, nuns, students, scientists, musicians, teachers, farmers, writers and historians (to name just a few) striving for a better world.

In the following pages, we feature more than 60 women and groups who represent a mere sampling of the ladies who have devoted their lives to work for the health and well-being of our mountain culture, people and environment in their own unique ways.

We thank the folks who helped us compile these stories; without you this would have been next to impossible. Please forgive us for the ones we inadvertently left out, and help us to expand our list by visiting AppalachianVoices.org/superwomen/ to add to our growing database of fearless, formidable, stupendous and fantastic super women of Appalachia.

EPA Vetoes Spruce Mountaintop Removal Mine Permit

By Jamie Goodman

On January 13, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a veto of the largest proposed mountaintop removal permit in West Virginia history. Arch Coal’s “Spruce Mine #1” permit would have impacted more than 2,000 acres and buried more than eight miles of streams in Logan County, W.Va.

“The proposed Spruce No. 1 Mine would use destructive and unsustainable mining practices that jeopardize the health of Appalachian communities and clean water on which they depend,” said EPA’s Peter Silva.

Historically, the EPA has been slow to reach for its veto pen. The decision on the Spruce mine permit was only the thirteenth such veto the EPA has used under section 404 of the Clean Water Act, and the first time ever on a water permit associated with an Appalachian surface mine.

The EPA offered an alternative proposal to Arch Coal that would have lessened the aquatic impacts of the Spruce mine from eight miles to three miles of streams, for a cost of around fifty-five cents per ton of coal. However, EPA officials said that Arch Coal walked away from negotiations.

Citizen groups in Appalachia were generally pleased with the EPA’s veto of this mountaintop removal permit. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., speaking with Appalachian Voices, called Lisa Jackson “the most courageous EPA Administrator this country has ever had.”

The groups said that if the EPA was going to be consistent, they needed to continue to deny mountaintop removal permits that were using valley fills.

“The EPA’s action is the kind of bold step we need to ensure the health of our communities and safety of our natural heritage,” said Ann League of Tennessee’s Statewide Organizing for Community Empowerment.

“[W]e need permanent, enforceable action to end mountaintop removal, end destruction of our mountains and waterways, and to protect the Appalachian people, once and for all,” said Sam Broch, Virginia resident and member of Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards.

The coal industry and its allies opposed the veto, particularly the fact that the EPA could veto the permit after the Army Corps of Engineers had already signed off on it.

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) plans to make it his first act as senator to introduce legislation to remove the EPA’s ability to veto Clean Water Act permits. In a letter to his colleagues, he said, “While it is not unusual for the EPA to object to a coal mine permit, this particular decision is shocking in that the EPA, for the first time in more than three decades, has “vetoed” a coal mine permit that had been thoroughly reviewed by the EPA and other regulators, awarded by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and put into action by the mining company.”

Congressman Nick Rahall (D-WV) added, “The good news, if there is any, may be that by EPA’s finalizing this threatened action, the matter can now be taken before the courts, where I hope it will receive a thorough hearing and expeditious reversal.”

COAL Report

Duke & Progress To Merge

Duke Energy and Progress Energy announced they will merge at the end of 2011 to become the largest electric utility in the country, serving more than 7 million customers; half of the combined electricity generation will be provided by coal, including new power plants under construction in North Carolina and Indiana.

Retiring With A “Blank” Check

Massey Energy’s mountaintop removal mining czar Don Blankenship announced his retirement in late 2010. Massey had the worst mine safety record in America under his 10-year leadership. Blankenship’s retirement package includes a $12 million bonus, health care for two years, and a 2-year, $5,000 per month consulting retainer.

What Egg-actly?

Groups of the newly formed Water Advocacy Council, including the United Egg Producers, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the National Mining Association, recently asked Council on Environmental Quality chair Nancy Sutley to oppose the EPA’s veto of the Spruce No. 1 surface mine’s Section 404 permit, stating that the decision to revoke a previously authorized permit could have implications on all previously authorized 404 permits, including those for agriculture, home building and transportation. Journalists such as the Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward were quick to point out that EPA never actually gave final sign-off to the Spruce Permit, and that the agency has been sparing in using its veto authority. The Spruce Mine veto is only the thirteenth in thirty-nine years, and the first ever of an Appalachian strip-mine permit.

Coal Fired Power Soon To Be Up In Smoke?

According to a report by The Brattle Group, “emerging EPA regulations on air and water quality for coal-fired power plants could result in over 50,000 MW of coal plant retirements and require $180 billion for remaining plants to comply with likely mandates.” The report also says that by 2020, coal plant closures will reduce coal demand by 15 percent and reduce CO2 emissions by 150 million tons. Coal consumption has lowered more than 10% in the past several years, now supplying only 44% of the country’s total electricity needs (as of October 2010).

Safety first…in a few months

In June of this year, the Mine Safety and Health Administration will issue a final rule for rock dust requirements, replacing emergency temporary standards put in place last September after the Upper Big Branch mine disaster; MSHA investigators believe that an inadequate layer of rock dust—used to control highly explosive coal dust—may have contributed to the intensity of the explosion that killed 29 miners. In March, 2011, the Mining Safety Health Association will start requiring mine operators to install proximity detection devices on mobile equipment, to prevent pinning and crushing accidents in underground mines. Since 1983, 31 miners have been killed in accidents involving remote controlled continuous mining machines.

One Country’s Junk is Still Junk

A recent New York Times article reported that, although developed countries are closing coal-fired power plants or limiting the use of coal over pollution and climate change concerns, the market demand in Asia, and particularly China, is expanding at a rapid pace. Demand from Asia has helped double the price of coal over the past five years, creating what the Sierra Club calls a “worse-case scenario” in the push to reduce carbon emissions.

When Ollie “Widow” Combs laid down in front of a bulldozer that was preparing to strip-mine her Kentucky farm in 1965, it’s doubtful that she realized her actions to protect her land would grow into a movement. Today, women’s voices are among the loudest in the fight to protect not only personal land, but drinking water, clean air, the natural environment and the very culture that Appalachia thrives on. Here are but a few of those amazing voices.

Julia “Judy” Bonds | Saying Goodbye to an American Hero

By J.W. Randolph

It is with a heavy heart that we witness the passing of one of the greatest Appalachian leaders in our country’s history, Judy Bonds.

A loyal friend, inspiring leader and a proud family woman, Judy will be remembered for her unwavering commitment to the people of Appalachia and for her heroic efforts to ending mountaintop removal coal mining.

With her sharp wit and quick smile, Judy was a joyful peer, an engaging collaborator and a powerful and beautiful storyteller who told the rest of America the story of Appalachia and its people. Judy stood up for her region at great personal risk to herself, facing arrest, threats and even assault from allies of a corrupt coal industry.

Born in Marfork Hollow, W.Va., she was the proud daughter of a coal miner. In 2003, Judy received international acclaim, winning the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for community organizing at a time when few people had even heard of mountaintop removal.

Like many Appalachian women, Judy was intimately familiar with the flora and fauna around her. “See that? That’s the ironweed,” Ms. Bonds once said, pointing out a purple-flowered plant to a visiting reporter. “They say they’re a symbol for Appalachian women. They’re pretty. And their roots run deep. It’s hard to move them.”

As much as Judy loved her home, she spent years on the road bearing witness to the problems in Appalachia and inspiring thousands of people to join the movement to end mountaintop removal. Her organizing efforts were palpable at the national level and in her own backyard, where she confronted dangerously overloaded coal haul trucks, was instrumental in the campaign to build a new Marsh Fork Elementary School and fight tirelessly to end the poisoning and blasting of her own community.

Recognizing the corruption and ineffectiveness of many Appalachian politicians, Judy also spoke about the importance of organizing across the nation and bringing the fight to Washington D.C.

Judy’s family lived in Marfork Hollow for six generations until she was forced to leave in 2001, as the last residents of a community ravaged by mountaintop removal. She recalled standing in a creek in the Coal River Valley with her 7-year old grandson, his fists full of dead fish, and knowing that something was going horribly wrong. Fueled by her first-hand knowledge of the injustices faced by coalfield citizens Judy went on to become the director of Coal River Mountain Watch, and a leading voice calling for justice in Appalachia, helping build a national movement.

“When powerful people pursue profits at the expense of human rights and our environment, they have failed as leaders,” Ms. Bonds once said. “Responsible citizens must step forward, not just to point the way, but to lead the way to a better world.”

Words will fail to express the awe we all shared as we watched Judy live her life, the gratitude that we feel for her leadership and courage, or the loss of a friend that is felt in our shared community. It is a community that is much larger thanks to Judy Bonds. Judy’s family has asked that donations be made to Coal River Mountain Watch, www.crmw.net

Kathy Selvage | A Woman “Wise” Beyond Her Years

By parker Stevens

With a sweet demeanor and a southern disposition rivaling any Georgia Peach, you might not take Kathy Selvage for a fighter, but she is.

A coal miner’s daughter from Wise County, Va., Selvage has always had a great respect for miners, but when a coal company began blasting off mountaintops in her community, Selvage began working to bring national exposure to mountaintop removal coal mining.

She has been a citizen lobbyist for five years at the annual Week in Washington and has appeared in films such as Coal Country and Electricity Fairy. As part of the Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition, Selvage was instrumental in the fight against a proposal for a Wise County coal-fired plant.

She was the recipient of the 2006 St. Francis Ecological Award of Sowers of Justice and was named in Blue Ridge Country magazine as one of 14 individuals shaping the region.

“Appalachian women are hard working women,” said Selvage. “We are multi-taskers, we are given to great thought and we are people of action.”

Lorelei Scarbro | She Knows Which Way the Wind Blows

By Sandra Diaz

Lorelei Scarbro has a vision for the economically poor of Coal River Valley in W.Va. to create a thriving and empowered community with the capacity to shape its economic future.

Scarbro, a W.Va. native, has worked to help establish the Boone-Raleigh Community Center in Whitesville. By providing a “third space” (outside of home and work), Scarbro encourages local residents to come together in a spirit of community to reclaim local traditions and create new ideas, with the hope of stimulating local entrepreneurship.

She has also been a passionate advocate for a wind farm on Coal River Mountain as an alternative to mountaintop removal mining.

Ann League | A Force to be Reckoned With

By Dana Kuhnline

When Ann League’s dream home near Zeb Mountain in Tennessee was threatened by mountaintop removal, she decided to become involved with Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment (SOCM), where she now works as an organizer.

“I do this work because I love the mountains, and I have a deep seated feeling of southern Appalachian heritage,” said League. “I don’t know if I have a good voice, but I have learned I have a loud voice.”

A few years ago a bill was introduced in the Tennessee legislature that would create a buffer of protection around streams near mining. It was a good bill – except for a loophole that eliminated most of the protection.

“The regulators said it wouldn’t matter, because they were only tiny streams,” said League. “But we had members who fished and kayaked these 50-foot wide streams, and they brought in pictures and stories, and the legislators listened. They fixed the bill, it passed and we learned later that this protection set a precedent for all of Appalachia.”

In addition to her work in Tennessee, League is a leading member of the Alliance for Appalachia, often traveling for lobbying visits.

“Ann has a tireless presence in the hallways of Congress,” said Bill Price, a community organizer for the Sierra Club. “She is a true force to be reckoned with and could go against a paid industry lobbyist any day of the week and come out ahead.”

Fellow organizer Chris Hill adds, “From the hills of Tennessee to Capitol Hill, Ann is one of the most energetic and caring individuals I know. With her humor and passion, Ann always brightens up the room.”

Ann League knows how to find the common denominator between people – and these connections often involve food.

“I have a philosophy that I deal with people with respect and camaraderie till they prove to me otherwise. If we can find a way to work together, then I’m willing to share a barbecue recipe with them.”

Vivian Stockman | A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Mountains

By Dana Kuhnline

Vivian Stockman single-handedly stops a coal truck from barging into a 'stop mountaintop removal' rally. Photo by Linda Frame/Janet Keating

If you have seen a photo of mountaintop removal, there is a good chance it was taken by Vivian Stockman, whose work in West Virginia with Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition has helped knowledge of mountaintop removal spread as far as Ghana, Germany and Japan.

“My grandpa had an inspiring connection to the land and he taught me that,” said Stockman. “All life is important; Salamanders can’t read a sign that says don’t drink the water.”

“But I do this work because the people impacted are my family. Whenever I drive away from an event, I think, I love us! The people in this movement help keep me going.”

Teri Blanton | Turning Suffering into Strength

By Dana Kuhnline

Teri Blanton began organizing in Harlan County, Ky., when a toxic Superfund site ruined her community’s water. As a fellow with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth Canary Project, Teri has become one of the region’s most powerful voices for a just, sustainable future.

“It’s important to build new leaders so that everyone is speaking for themselves,” said Blanton. “I hear stories of injustice every day that makes me sick. I met a little girl just two weeks ago who is sick and coughing from coal dust. To a coal company and their profits, this little girl’s life means nothing. People are paying a real price for so-called cheap energy.”

“To keep going, you have to take this suffering and turn it into a source of strength,” said Blanton. “When people tell their stories, it can’t stop there. We have to turn them into action.”

Maria Gunnoe | Turning Spirit and Grit into a Goldman

By Dana Kuhnline

Photo by Vivian Stockman

When floods from a nearby mountaintop removal mine washed away acres of Maria Gunnoe’s ancestral land in Boone County, W.Va., she began to tirelessly organize with Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition to stop the mine and protect other communities from the same fate, despite threats against her life.

“Maria is a prime example of true Appalachian spirit and grit. She goes out of her way to help someone in need, and won’t think twice to stand up to those who do wrong,” says Dustin White, who works with Maria to protect cemeteries from mountaintop removal.

Maria’s tenacity earned her a 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize and stopped expansion of the mine behind her house. I met a little girl just two weeks ago who is sick and coughing from coal dust. To a coal company and their profits, this little girl’s life means nothing.

She is currently working to keep the community of Twilight, WV from being lost to mountaintop removal. Learn more at mtrstopshere.org

Dr. Margaret Janes | Calling out Polluters and Creating Better Appalachian Policy

By Jeff Deal

If you think you can handle the sticker shock, Senior Policy Analyst Dr. Margaret Janes can tell you a lot about the true cost of coal and industrial agriculture.

As a 16-year veteran of The Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment (ACEE), Janes has worked on issues ranging from industrial agricultural pollution to mountaintop removal coal mining.

Thanks to Jane’s in-depth research and the talented team at ACEE, mining and agricultural polluter’s have been required to clean up their act while the laws and regulations which safeguard the health of the region have been improved.

Find out more about Jane’s and the Centers’ work at appalachian-center.org.

Dr. Margaret Palmer | Creating Healthier Ecosystems for All

By Sandra Diaz

Margaret Palmer, a professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Director of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, has done much to shed light on the biological impacts of mountaintop removal on streams.

Although she received her PhD. in oceanography, she turned her attention to freshwater systems, focusing on ecologically effective restoration of rivers and streams. She was a lead scientist on the blockbuster study showing the impacts of mountaintop removal to be “pervasive and irreversible.”

She even brought the issue of mountaintop removal to a new audience during an interview with Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert, managing to outsmart him on every one of his trick questions and laughing at each of his quirky little quips.