The Biggest Uprising Since the Civil War Happened Here 100 Years Ago

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

59% : State leaders in Charleston strike a different tune, praising coal while simultaneously gutting coal communities.
55% : Steele and a few others could recall running coal in the past 20 years.
45% : Coal operators, for their part, continue to operate wherever they can squeeze the last bits of coal out of the ground, leaving communities to deal with the ecological fallout.
43% : There is a direct line between the decline in well-paying union jobs, subsequent losses in tax revenue, the deterioration of community services and tearing of the social fabric, and the regression of a once highly collective class of people into a more individualist and self-reliant population weary of notions such as solidarity.
42% : In an act of prestidigitation, the once-minority Republican Party in West Virginia shifted blame for the decline in coal production away from coal companies and onto the federal government, whose embrace of green-energy standards was blamed for the area's decline.
39% : With mainly small-donor contributions, Local 1440 funded the completion of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum next door, preserving a story of capitalism, oppression, and solidarity that was erased from public record.
36% : After coal companies rejected every effort by the UMWA to win representation, armed struggle took hold.

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