Mountain Holler
Hope for Cecil Roberts' help vanished in 3 years
In 1996, we saw good ol' boy Cecil Roberts from Cabin Creek take office as United Mine Workers president. We thought that people in West Virginia's coalfields would have a better life.
I arranged for Roberts to meet with his former neighbors and friends in the local mining districts at the Stanley Heirs Park atop Kayford Mountain. There he gave one of his preacher speeches encouraging people to stand up and fight the destruction of mountaintop removal mining.
Community members, mostly miners and their families, attended the event on Kayford Mountain. Many UMWA families cheered as Roberts said:
"It is so important that we not sell out our heritage, sell out our family name or our family home places. There is too much of that has happened in the state of West Virginia already. Let me suggest to you that you will meet resistance along the way. And I am going to tell you where most of this resistance is going to come from in preserving this mountaintop: It's going to come from out-of-state coal companies who have taken advantage and abused West Virginia for 130 years.
"What has coal mining done for the state of West Virginia? We have seen death, we have seen widows, we have seen orphans, and we have seen black lung and broken bodies. Every child ever born on Cabin Creek should have a college education. I get a little passionate about this because it is wrong that this is happening in this state. It is wrong that this is happening in West Virginia. We should not have the poverty that we see. ... With so much wealth in this state, it should have been shared with the people who gave their lives in these coal mines. Both my grandfathers died mining coal on Cabin Creek, one at Kayford and one at Acme.
"For too long now, friends, we have seen our money go to New York, through Wall Street, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, St. Louis, that's where the money off Cabin Creek has gone. I suggest to you it's about time the people in West Virginia stood up and said enough is enough is enough! We've had it. We are going to stand and we are going to speak together. Is that so wrong that we would like to come back here and say this is where the Stanley family was raised. This is where the Stanley family owns 500 acres. This is where the Stanley family got its start about the same time that West Virginia got its start. Isn't it amazing that you are going to have to fight for that?"
After this speech in 1997, the following year Roberts sent me $500 and a letter of encouragement to continue the fight against mountaintop removal and to save our home places and heritage. During the gathering on Kayford on July 4, 1997, he sent Mike Caputo, a UMWA representative, to give a talk on Kayford Mountain.
Then in 1998, Roberts started to back down in his support for our fight to save mountains. By 1999, he and the UMWA were endorsing mountaintop removal coal mining as a responsible mining technique.
To the workers and retirees Roberts represents: When in your history have you ever seen your union so comfortably in bed with the coal industry and what benefits have you lost because of this? I, as the last resident of Kayford, have more faith in the West Virginia people than Roberts does.
I appeal to you: Think about your future and the future that you leave to your children. You all deserve better! Folks say that you are generally judged by the company you keep. Take a good, hard look at Cecil Roberts.
Gibson, who comes from a family of miners, lives on Kayford Mountain.