Grasstime new single "COAL" out everywhere you find music October 16
COAL
“” COAL” resonated with me the moment I heard it. My family is from Appalachia and has been in SW Virginia since the 1700’s. Those that were alive during the era of this song were tough people. They made their way through life, really hard times and many struggles. Some of them and family friends were working in the mines during the Coal Wars of West Virginia. Striking workers in Matewan were being evicted from company housing when the confrontation happened. 10 men died, and the people in the region rose up, and stood up to corporate abuse and tyranny. Those were dangerous times and that led to a huge escalation which became the largest armed labor uprising in US history until the government intervened and sent machine guns and bombs. Those men stood up against corporate oppression because they were tired and mistreated. No question there was interracial solidarity. Those legends stood up for themselves and for the mistreatment of others. And they all changed history. There are a lot life lessons that we all can learn from in historical events. ”
Robbie Morris
Grasstime’s latest single, “COAL,” is more than just a piece of music; it is a journey into the dark, blood-stained history of the Appalachian mine wars. At the center of this lies the infamous Battle of Matewan, a defining and tragic moment in American labor history that took place on May 19, 1920, deep in the rugged hills of Mingo County, West Virginia. For the coal miners of that era, life was notoriously hard, and the labor was physically devastating. As former West Virginia coal miner Terry Steele grimly noted about the reality of the times, “If you got a mule killed in the mines and you were in charge, you could lose your job over it. If you got a man killed, he could be replaced.” This brutal corporate expendability drove desperate workers to seek safety and shelter and through unionization. They aligned themselves with the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) District 17, demanding a living wage, safer working conditions, and basic human dignity.
The coal companies, fiercely opposed what they viewed as a threat to their enormou profits and absolute control, retaliated with ruthless force. To crush the organizing efforts, they hired the notorious Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, a private police force historically described by contemporaries as the “gunmen of capitalism.” On that fateful spring morning, a heavily armed contingent of these detectives arrived in the independent town of Matewan. Their mission was to illegally evict unionized miners and their families from company-owned housing, heartlessly throwing their meager belongings out into the miserable rain.
However, the coal operators severely underestimated the resolve of Matewan’s local leadership. Unlike the surrounding company-owned towns, Matewan had elected officials who bravely refused to bow to corporate intimidation. Mayor Cabell Testerman and Police Chief Sid Hatfield stood as an immovable bulwark for the local miners. When the Baldwin-Felts agents returned to the train depot after their cruel campaign of evictions, Hatfield, alongside the Mayor and a group of furious, armed miners, intercepted them. Hatfield attempted to arrest the lead detective, Al Felts, for executing the illegal evictions, which prompted Felts to produce a fraudulent warrant for Hatfield's own arrest. Tempers violently flared, and in an instant, a deafening firefight erupted on the streets. To this day, history cannot definitively confirm who fired the first shot, but the carnage was absolute. The brief but catastrophic skirmish left ten men dead in the dirt: seven Baldwin-Felts detectives, two courageous union miners, and Mayor Cabell Testerman himself.
The Battle of Matewan—frequently referred to as the Matewan Massacre—was a watershed event. While Sid Hatfield and his men were subsequently acquitted of murder charges, the bloodshed was far from over. Hatfield was later assassinated in a brazen act of corporate retribution, an event that ignited a powder keg of righteous fury across Appalachia. The ensuing violence escalated into a fierce guerrilla war between the workers and the industrialists, culminating in the historic Battle of Blair Mountain, where federal troops were eventually called in with machine guns and bombs from WWI to suppress the rebellion of an estimated 20,0000 armed miners.
The legacy of Matewan is a profound testament to the steep, often deadly price of worker solidarity and the unending fight against corporate tyranny. As Steele profoundly observes regarding the enduring relevance of these events, “The things they were fighting for [in the Matewan massacre] are the things we're fighting for today.”
Through driving acoustic instrumentation and poignant lyrics penned by Gary Boevers and Mike Richards, Grasstime’s “COAL” channels the unbreakable spirit of those Mingo County miners, ensuring that the heavy price they paid in blood will never be forgotten.
* The Coal Mining Massacre America Forgot (Smithsonian Magazine)
* Note: This article provided the quotes from Terry Steele regarding the expendability of miners ("If you got a mule killed...") and the enduring legacy of the struggle ("The things they were fighting for..."). It also provided details on the poor living conditions, the yellow-dog contracts, the evictions on May 19, and the conflicting accounts of who fired the first shot.
* Appalachia's “Gunmen Of Capitalism” And The Matewan Massacre (West Virginia Public Broadcasting)
* Link: https://wvpublic.org/story/arts-culture/appalachias-gunmen-of-capitalism-and-the-matewan-massacre/
* Note: This source provided the historical characterization of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency as the “gunmen of capitalism.”
* New Great War Episode: The Battle of Blair Mountain - West Virginia (Real Time History)
* Note: This source provided the specific details of the altercation between the Mayor, Sid Hatfield, and Al Felts over the bogus warrant, the death toll (seven detectives, two miners, and the mayor), and the subsequent assassination of Sid Hatfield that led to the Battle of Blair Mountain.