Chapter 26 Exercises: The Appalachian Resistance Tradition — From Blair Mountain to Buffalo Creek to Climate Activism

Exercise 1: Primary Source Analysis — Survivor Testimony

Read the following excerpts from oral history interviews with Buffalo Creek disaster survivors, collected by researchers at Marshall University's Appalachian Heritage Center (1972-1980):

Interview A — Wilma Akers, Lorado, West Virginia, 1973: "I grabbed the baby and ran out the back door. The water was already in the front room. I could hear it — it sounded like a train, like a locomotive was coming through the house. I got up on the hill behind the house and I turned around and the house was gone. Just gone. The water had picked it up and it was tumbling down the creek like a cardboard box. Everything I owned in the world was in that house. My wedding pictures. My grandmother's quilt. My children's baby shoes. All of it."

Interview B — Dennis Prince, Lundale, West Virginia, 1975: "After the flood, they put us in trailers. They scattered us all over the county. The people I'd lived next to my whole life — I didn't know where they were. Nobody knew where anybody was. The government said they were helping us, but what they were doing was breaking up the community. You can't put a community back together once you've scattered it like that. It's gone. You can't get it back."

a) Both interviews describe losses that go beyond physical property. What kinds of loss does each speaker describe? How do these losses connect to Kai Erikson's concept of "collective trauma" — the destruction of community bonds as distinct from individual injury?

b) In Interview B, Prince describes the government's relocation effort as "breaking up the community." Evaluate this claim. Was the scattering of survivors an unavoidable consequence of the disaster, or could it have been avoided with different relocation policies? What would a community-preserving relocation approach have looked like?

c) Compare these survivor testimonies to the Pittston Coal Company's characterization of the disaster as an "act of God." How do the two perspectives frame responsibility differently? What does the "act of God" characterization erase from the story?

d) Write a brief essay (300-400 words) on the value of survivor testimony as a historical source. What can these interviews tell us that official reports, legal documents, and engineering analyses cannot?

Exercise 2: Mapping the Resistance Tradition

This chapter argues that Appalachian resistance is not episodic but continuous — a thread running through 150 years of history. Create a visual representation (timeline, map, or concept diagram) that documents this tradition.

a) Identify at least eight specific resistance events described in this textbook (drawing from Chapters 10, 17, 21, 24, 25, and 26). For each event, record: the date, the location, the issue at stake, the actors involved, the outcome, and the connection to the events before and after it.

b) Identify the common elements that link these events. What structural conditions are present in each case? What tactics do the resisters use? What forces do they confront? What role do women play?

c) Identify the differences between the resistance events across time. How have tactics evolved? How has the identity of the "enemy" changed? How has the role of outside allies shifted?

d) Write a 400-word analysis of whether the resistance tradition constitutes a single, coherent tradition or a series of separate events that happen to share some characteristics. What makes it a "tradition" rather than a coincidence?

Exercise 3: Nonviolent Resistance in the Coalfields

The Pittston Coal strike of 1989 was remarkable for its deliberate, disciplined nonviolence — a sharp departure from the armed confrontations that characterized earlier coalfield labor conflicts.

a) Research the principles of nonviolent resistance as articulated by Martin Luther King Jr. (in "Letter from Birmingham Jail"), Mahatma Gandhi (in his writings on satyagraha), and Gene Sharp (in "The Politics of Nonviolent Action"). Summarize the key principles in your own words.

b) Analyze the Pittston strike's nonviolent strategy using these principles. How did the strikers apply nonviolent resistance techniques? Where did the strategy succeed, and where was it challenged? Why was the occupation of the Moss 3 plant an act of nonviolent resistance rather than simply an illegal trespass?

c) Compare the nonviolent approach of the Pittston strike to the armed resistance at Blair Mountain in 1921. Were both justified? Did the different eras and circumstances demand different tactics? Could the Blair Mountain miners have succeeded with nonviolence? Could the Pittston miners have succeeded with arms?

d) Write a 400-word analysis of whether nonviolent resistance is more effective than armed resistance for movements facing overwhelming institutional power. Use evidence from the mine wars and the Pittston strike to support your argument.

Exercise 4: The "Passive Victim" Stereotype

This chapter directly challenges the stereotype of Appalachian people as passive victims who accept their circumstances without resistance.

a) Where does the "passive victim" stereotype come from? Drawing on Chapter 14 (the outsider construction of Appalachia) and Chapter 35's concept budget (stereotypes and media), trace the origins of the idea that Appalachian people are fatalistic and resigned.

b) Identify at least three specific ways in which the evidence presented in this textbook contradicts the "passive victim" stereotype. For each example, explain how the stereotype erases the actual history.

c) Who benefits from the "passive victim" stereotype? How does it serve the interests of the coal industry, of politicians, of media producers, or of others? Why might it be convenient for certain groups to believe that Appalachian people accept their circumstances?

d) Write a 400-word essay arguing that the suppression of Appalachian resistance history is itself a form of oppression — that erasing the tradition of fighting back makes future fighting back more difficult by depriving people of their own history.

Exercise 5: Environmental Justice and the Resistance Tradition

This chapter traces the connection between the labor resistance of the mine wars and the environmental resistance of the anti-mountaintop removal and anti-pipeline movements.

a) Identify at least three specific individuals or organizations mentioned in this chapter (or in Chapter 24) whose activism connects the labor and environmental traditions. For each, describe how their experience in one form of resistance informed their participation in another.

b) Compare the structural dynamics of a coal labor conflict (e.g., the Pittston strike) and an environmental conflict (e.g., the fight against mountaintop removal). Create a comparison table identifying the parties, the issues, the tactics, the resources available to each side, and the outcomes. What is similar? What is different?

c) The concept of a "just transition" — a transition away from fossil fuels that does not abandon the communities that depend on them — is described as a contemporary expression of the resistance tradition. Research one specific just transition proposal or program in Appalachia. Describe it and evaluate whether it adequately addresses the concerns of coalfield communities.

d) Write a 500-word reflection on the relationship between labor justice and environmental justice. Can you fight for workers' rights and environmental protection at the same time, or do these goals sometimes conflict? How do Appalachian activists navigate this tension?

Exercise 6: Then and Now — The Resistance Continues

Then: In 1989, 1,900 miners and their families built Camp Solidarity and sustained a ten-month strike against the Pittston Coal Company.

Now: Appalachian activists are fighting against pipelines, for a just transition, and for the communities that powered America's industrial economy.

a) Research a contemporary Appalachian activist organization (possibilities include Appalachian Voices, the STAY Project, the Appalachian Citizens' Law Center, Coal River Mountain Watch, or another organization of your choice). Describe its mission, its methods, and its connection (or lack of connection) to the historical resistance tradition described in this chapter.

b) Identify a specific contemporary campaign or action by an Appalachian resistance organization. Describe the campaign, its goals, its tactics, and its outcome (if known). How does it compare to the historical resistance events described in this chapter?

c) Interview an Appalachian activist (if possible) about their understanding of the resistance tradition. Do they see themselves as part of a historical tradition? How does the history of past resistance inform their work?

d) Write a 400-word analysis of the current state of the Appalachian resistance tradition. Is it thriving, declining, or transforming? What challenges does it face? What gives you hope or concern?

Exercise 7: Resistance Music

Music has accompanied Appalachian resistance from Florence Reece's "Which Side Are You On?" through the labor songs of Hazel Dickens and the protest songs of contemporary activists.

a) Listen to at least three songs associated with Appalachian resistance (possibilities include: "Which Side Are You On?" by Florence Reece, "Black Lung" or "They'll Never Keep Us Down" by Hazel Dickens, "Paradise" by John Prine, "Coal Miner's Daughter" by Loretta Lynn, or a contemporary Appalachian protest song). For each song, identify: the specific issue addressed, the emotional tone, the intended audience, and the relationship between the music and the political message.

b) How does music function as a tool of resistance? What can a song do that a speech, a legal brief, or a protest sign cannot? Why has music been such a consistent feature of Appalachian resistance movements?

c) Compare an Appalachian resistance song to a protest song from another tradition (civil rights, anti-war, labor, environmental). What do the songs share? What is distinctive about the Appalachian musical tradition of resistance?

d) Write an original verse for a contemporary Appalachian resistance song — addressing a current issue such as the opioid crisis, environmental destruction, or economic transition. Follow the tradition of using accessible language and a singable melody.

Exercise 8: Community History Portfolio — Resistance in Your County

This exercise is part of the ongoing Community History Portfolio project. For your selected Appalachian county:

a) Research the resistance history of your county. Were there labor strikes, environmental protests, community organizing campaigns, or other forms of collective action? Identify specific events, dates, and participants using county newspaper archives, union records, historical society collections, and oral histories.

b) If your county has a documented resistance tradition, trace the connections between different eras of organizing. Did the participants or organizations overlap? Did the issues change while the methods remained similar?

c) If your county lacks a documented resistance tradition, investigate why. Was the county not affected by the industries that provoked resistance elsewhere? Were there structural barriers to organizing (e.g., extreme company control, geographic isolation, demographic factors)? The absence of resistance is itself a historical finding that requires explanation.

d) Write a 500-word assessment of the resistance tradition (or its absence) in your county, connecting the local story to the broader patterns described in this chapter. Who fought? What did they fight for? What did they achieve? Whose stories have not been told?