Kentucky Miners Defense Records

The Kentucky Miners Defense was an organization formed to help free seven imprisoned miners who had been convicted of murdering three coal company guards in Evarts, Harlan County, Kentucky during a hard-fought miners' strike in May 1931. Intense conflict between coal company agents and local authorities, on the one hand, and desperate locked-out miners, many of them homeless and destitute resulted in numerous incidents of violence. On May 5, 1931 a large group of armed miners attacked a convoy of deputies; a heavy exchange of fire, lasting thirty minutes, left 3 deputies and 1 miner dead. Local union officials W. B. Jones and William Hightower and more than forty miners were arrested in connection with the killing of the deputies. After several trials, Jones, Hightower and six others were convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, although the facts of the case were unclear.

Herbert Mahler (a former activist in the Industrial Workers of the World), director of the organization, spearheaded the publicity campaign to bring national attention to the miners' cases. Fund-raising publicity was often aimed at unions and their members since the Kentucky miners had been attempting to organize under the auspices of the United Mine Workers when they were violently blocked by the coal companies and their allies.

Sources:

American Civil Liberties Union. The Kentucky Miners Struggle. (New York: ACLU, 1932).Hevener, John. Which Side Are You on? The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978.Publications relating to Kentucky Miners Defense. (Tamiment Library Vertical File).