2006 – Issue 3 (June)

Riverhead Books. New York. 2006 250 pages. $24.95 The removal of entire mountain tops merely to extract coal is such a staggering idea that it’s often presented in religious metaphors – to move a mountain, after all, is an act most often associated with religious texts. The environmental devastation wreaked by mountaintop removal is so…

Harlan County USA Rounder 11661-4026-2 Protest songs are a time-honored method of American political expression. From Woody Guthrie’s Depression-era union anthems up through current fare by Neil Young and the Dixie Chicks, politics and music have long intermingled. Songs serve as vehicles for stating opposition, rallying support, and spreading news in a fashion more potent…

The Mountain that Hugh Morton found so fascinating was already famous. This account of Muir’s visit, written by Hugh Morton’s son Jim, shows the family interest. On September 25, 1898, America’s most celebrated conservationist and naturalist, John Muir, visitied Grandfather Mountain. Then 60 years old, Muir was traveling with his friends, botanist Charles Sprague Sargent…

The following is an excerpt from a report by Harvard Ayers, Ph.D. of the Dept. of Anthropology, Appalachian State University. The area of the Battle of Blair Mountain is being nominated under category A of the National Register criteria, as it is undeniably associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad…

images/voice_uploads/2_circle.GrannyD.gif Documentary cameras rolled as heart-wrenching stories met a steely resolve to organize and stop mountaintop removal mining. Several hundred participants met at this year’s Healing Mountains conference in West Virginia, organized by the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Heartwood, the Coal River Mountain Watch, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and dozens of other organizations. Keynote speakers…

This April, the National Trust for Historic Preservation listed Blair mountain, the West Virginia site of a 1921 labor confrontation, as one of the country’s most threatened historic places. “Past preservation efforts have failed because of fierce opposition from the coal companies that own or lease most of the ridge,” said the National Trust for…

images/voice_uploads/13_HM_Mildred.gif One of Appalachcia’s most powerful voices has been silenced by cancer at age 85. Hugh Morton, a prominent North Carolina environmentalist, photographer and real estate developer, died at his home, surrouned by family, on the first of June. Known as the owner of Grandfather Mountain resort and also as a real estate developer and…

images/voice_uploads/18_Mother-Jones.gif To the commissioners of Jefferson County, West Virginia it looked like a slam dunk. All they wanted to do was level the 80-year old former Jefferson County jail that sits on the main street of the sleepy community of Charles Town and has not housed any creatures except rats for years. The commissioners planned…