January - February - United Mine Workers of America

around
our Union
Phil Smith
Monumental achievement
Four days before it packed its bags and left town, the Bush administration
finally designated the Ludlow Tent Colony in southern Colorado
as a National Historic Landmark.
The path to this achievement took nearly three years to complete.
Activists worked with historians and National Park Service (NPS) staff to
research deeds and determine how much of the historic site is contained
on UMWA land. Their initial application prompted the NPS to conduct
its own investigation and eventually prepare its nomination, to be forwarded
to an advisory committee appointed by the White House.
Secretary-Treasurer Kane testified before the committee last October,
which voted unanimously to recommend the designation to the
NPS, and Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne made it official on
Jan. 16.
“This action is a long-overdue recognition of the historic importance
of what took place at Ludlow. A courageous group of miners and
their families were attacked, machine-gunned, and women and children
burned alive, for standing up for simple justice in the coal mines,” Kane
said. “The landmark designation ensures that successive generations of
Americans will learn the lessons of Ludlow, for they are lessons working
people forget at our peril.”
In Memoriam: William Blizzard
William C. Blizzard, a labor activist,
reporter, photojournalist
and witness to history, died Dec. 29
in Ripley, W.Va. He was 92.
His father, Bill Blizzard, led the
“Red Neck Army” of coal miners
in an organizing march over Blair
Mountain into Logan County, where
they were met by state and private militias
and an aerial bombardment by
U.S. armed services, the only such domestic
action in history. The younger
Blizzard’s account of the 1921 battle,
When Miners March, charts the early
history of the UMWA in the state and
in the Ohio Valley.
“Bill Blizzard experienced the
grim realities of living in a coal
camp, saw the brutality of the mine
guards, heard the cries of wives and
children put out of their companyowned
houses when miners did
nothing more than talk about
freedom,” President Roberts said.
“He understood that the fight for
a better life for the working class
did not end at Blair Mountain—it
continues today. Bill’s words remind
us that without strong unions working
on behalf of their members,
we will soon be back to where we
were 92 years ago at the beginning
of Bill’s life—living and working at
the whim of giant corporations and
their hirelings. He was a lifelong
supporter of the UMWA, and we
will never forget his efforts and his
eloquence on our behalf.”
David Kameras
United Mine Workers Journal • January/February 2009 15