MARMET, W.Va. — Longtime United Mine Workers Union President Cecil Roberts says the labor movement will not forget the Battle of Blair Mountain.
Roberts and a few dozen other members of organized labor began a three-day march Friday morning to mark the 100-year anniversary of the march and ensuing battle. The first leg of the nearly 50-mile march is from Marmet in eastern Kanawha County to Racine in Boone County.
“This is something that labor is determined to keep visible,” Roberts told MetroNews minutes before the march began. “This is something that led to organizing not only in West Virginia but across the country.”
Roberts credits the march and ensuing battle with not only building the UMWA but other unions like the autoworkers, steelworkers, rubber workers and others.
“Fourteen years later, by 1935, the UMWA was the largest union in the nation,” Roberts said. “In some ways this march led to the middle class.”
Roberts said those who enjoy vacations, time off, health care, pensions, health and safety laws and black lung benefits should thank those who took part in the 1921 march.
“It started right here, our forefathers making a bold stand. We’re here to commemorate that and we’re here to make sure people never forget it,” Roberts said.
There were efforts to organize the miners into a union throughout southern West Virginia. Coal company officials fervently resisted the idea and hired gunmen to disrupt the process. The West Virginia State Police were called in amid violent uprisings between company hired guns and organizing miners. The governor declared martial law for a period of time.
The battle was one of the largest and most violent clashes over labor rights in America. The march culminated on Blair Mountain in Logan County with a five day shootout between Baldwin-Felts Detectives hired by the coal companies and the miners.
Roberts is retracing the footsteps of both of his grandfathers and his great uncle Bill Blizzard, who led the march.
UMWA member, state Senator Mike Caputo, D-Marion, was also part of Friday’s march. He said it’s very important to remember what happened 100 years ago.
“There are those coal operators who always try to reduce health and safety and always take us backward but with the effort of the United Mine Workers of America we’ve always been able to fight that. This union is more than 100 years old and I expect to be around for a long, long time,” he said.
The second leg of the march will take Saturday from Racine to Madison. On Sunday those participating will go from Madison to Sharples in Logan County. The UMWA will hold its annual Labor Day picnic Monday in Racine.