Weaver finally abandoned his poultry business in January. His next venture is to grow hemp to produce cannabinoid oil for the alternative health market — an industry which he says has not yet been sewn up by big corporations. They control West Virginia and Washington. Ultimately, however, its biggest extraction pipeline is wealth; very little of it stays in the state.
Both Republicans and Democrats in state politics are intimate with big business. Many of them join the payroll when they take a breather from politics. The parties are often hard to distinguish. He promptly switched his allegiance to the Republicans. Manchin, meanwhile, votes with Trump about two-thirds of the time. He is now facing an unlikely insurgent, Stephen Smith , who is fighting to be the Democratic nominee for governor. Pete Buttigieg , the popular young Democratic presidential candidate, was at college with him.
He resents how the US media depicts them. Their real anger, he says, is about rigged capitalism. Bill Marland, the last governor who tried to tax the extractive industries, was drummed out of office in the late s. He took to alcohol and ended up as a cab driver in Chicago. His successors took note. When he was governor in the early s, Manchin slashed corporate taxes. Partly as a result, West Virginia now comes last out of 50 states on surveys of quality of infrastructure.
It comes close to the bottom on almost every other indicator, including lifespan and rates of college education. Meanwhile, Manchin has become a wealthy man, partly through investments in coal. Manchin is a skilled retail politician.
Yet his fortunes and those of West Virginia have sharply diverged since he became its dominant political figure. Judging from how people react, he is striking a chord. Has yours? Most answer with a resounding no.
Like most of his neighbours, Mike Weaver voted for Donald Trump. He is likely to do so again next year. Oddly enough, Weaver cites the same motivation for both his likely votes. Trump stands up for America, he says. Smith, meanwhile, will be a thorn in the side of big, out-of-state businesses. Smith also forswears donations from lobby groups. When I visit Terry and Wilma Steele, a retired miner and teacher, they invite me to stay the night, though they have never met me.
After I gratefully decline their offer, they show me where they hide the keys — if my family happens to be in the vicinity, we know where to look. I had spent some time finding the Steeles. Terry worked underground for more than a quarter of a century. Wilma runs the Mine Wars museum in Matewan, which is where a storied battle took place between the miners and the hired guns of the notorious Baldwin-Felts detective agency, whom the coal operators had retained as their private army.
Most of the early coal settlements were company towns. Their denizens had no democracy. They were paid in company scrip, which could only be spent in company stores. If they joined a union, they were evicted overnight. They were like caged animals. After miners won the right to unionise, life steadily improved.
Many of them kept a picture of FDR on their living-room walls. Their redneck spirit continued. Wilma grew up in desegregated Matewan. The last mayor of the town, Johnny Fullen , was African-American. Things changed dramatically in the s. Ronald Reagan won his battle with the unions and membership began to decline. It is now almost an ideology.
As the unions faded, racial antagonism resurfaced. The trade-off between class and race is stark in the US — nowhere more so than in West Virginia.
Wilma was at school with a man called Don Blankenship, who went on to become chief executive of Massey Energy, a coal operator. In , when Blankenship was chief executive, an underground blast killed 29 miners.
It was the worst accident in a generation. He was jailed for a year for having violated safety rules. Supporters dismissed climate change as a liberal conspiracy. Each of their families can be traced back to the s, when West Virginia was settled. Both are also descended from branches of the Hatfields, who were on one side in the infamous Hatfield-McCoy feud in the 19th century.
For her the passion of sharing this history started from telling young activists about the history behind the word "redneck" and the red bandana. Striking miners tied Red Bandanas around their necks during the march on Blair Mountain. They did not have the same culture. And they were fighting each other and divided. But when they tied on these bandanas and marched, they became a brotherhood.
And one of the things I love about the union is that the union was one of the early ones that said equal pay for blacks and whites. These were some of the bloodiest battles of the Mine Wars. And it was just a family gathering, and I was actually out back behind her house and was trying to throw a little toy knife into the side of the hill. Because you never know, you might have a Baldwin Felts thug after you one day. And why would they be after me?
But Frank Keeney had blood on his hands, and historians generally did not name him a hero. He was tried for treason and murder, though he was acquitted.
Wilma Lee Steele says she hopes the museum will become a place where people throughout the coalfields can come to reclaim their identity. Beginning May 23, the museum will be open on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a. Most of the museum's designs and exhibits are by Shaun Slifer. For more information, visit www. Weirton Steel was our largest employer a generation ago; in , it was Walmart. Meanwhile, our costs continue to rise — especially for healthcare, childcare and healthy food.
Churches, neighborhoods and unions have crumbled as families struggle just to make ends meet. Is it any wonder that divorce, drug abuse, debt, incarceration and suicide rates are near all-time highs? The town of Williamson population 2, was prescribed The formula is simple and familiar: the more we suffer, the richer some folks get.
It will take another revolution to put power in the hands of West Virginia families. The seeds of that revolution are being sown. Dozens of volunteer-led resistance groups have arisen in the last 18 months — RiseUp in Charleston, Mountaineers for Progress in Morgantown, and Huddles and Indivisibles across the state. Last year, progressive slates swept to victory in Lewisburg and Morgantown city council races.
This year, more than 50 additional first-time, grassroots candidates have filed to run for everything from school board to delegate to US Congress. In a true West Virginia spirit, dozens of volunteer feeding and childcare programs cropped up during the strike.
Thousands of teachers and janitors and bus drivers stormed the capitol — many wearing their red bandannas. A week later, West Virginia communications workers went on strike and won their own fight for job security.
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