Harlan County USA — Revisited
An inside view of the mine, the miners, and Duke Power’s notorious gun-thug from someone who knew them all.
It was June 1973 when the miners working at Brookside Mine voted to join the United Mine Workers of America union. They were fed up with the Southern Labor Union (SLU), whose allegiance was with their employer, Eastover Mining Company, a subsidiary of Duke Power — not the miners.
Duke Power refused to sign the miners’ contract prompting 180 miners to strike for 13-months. It was July 1973 when the miners walked off the job, and before it was over they took their story to Wall Street.
Barbara Kopple heard about the miner’s plight, assembled a modest crew, and headed for Harlan County, Kentucky. Armed with a camera, Kopple documented the antics, arrests, allegations of corruption, espionage, murder, and heroine-wives who held the picket line for their husbands throughout the strike.
Kopple’s documentary, Harlan County, USA won the Academy Award Best Documentary in 1976 for covering the United Mine Worker’s strike at Brookside Mine and I had the privilege to interview the man…
