Almost a century ago, in the stark Rocky Mountain foothills of Colorado, coal was king, coal miners were armed and restless, and coal barons were ready to kill to keep the fuel coming.
April 20th, 1914, all hell broke loose near Ludlow, Colorado. Open warfare over coal and compensation. The guns came out on all sides. Bullets flew. Fire roared. When it was over, scores had died in the deadliest labor conflict in American history.
A new telling of the Ludlow Massacre traces the conflict to the mansions of the Rockefellers, and deep into the earth. This Hour, On Point: killing for coal.
You can join the conversation. Do you know the history of the Ludlow Massacre? Of killing and coal?
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests:
Thomas Andrews joins us from Denver. He’s Assistant Professor of History at the University of Colorado Denver, and author of “Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War.”
Read an excerpt from the book
Watch Thomas Andrews describe the book at BookVideos TV
Read a review at The New Yorker
Hear a 1974 interview with Mary Thomas (O’Neal), survivor of the Ludlow massacre, at History Matters.
The podcast of this episode is about hip hop music, not coal mining.
Posted by Lisa, on August 13th, 2009 at 6:43 PMI’m with Lisa: this episode is about hip hop, not coal mining. I’m not Big on Biggie.
Posted by Brenda, on August 13th, 2009 at 7:37 PMGreat show. Still so relevant today.
Any attempts for workers to organize to better their lives still evokes hostility.
Just look how Single Payer health insurance is not even “on the table” in spite of over 60% support. If the corporations don’t want something, it “isn’t politically viable,” and therefore is ignored.
THAT is not democracy. Still plutocracy.
Posted by Alan, on August 13th, 2009 at 7:43 PMI’d really like to listen to the program about the coal war, but definitely not hip hop. Why does the On Point website have such frequent malfunctions?
Posted by don, on August 13th, 2009 at 9:08 PMThe wrong episode is still posted here.
Posted by Leila, on August 13th, 2009 at 9:39 PMIt’s pointing to the right thing now. Excellent show too. Very good.
Posted by Ed, on August 17th, 2009 at 1:03 PMwonderful!!!! Great!!!!! 100 years after it happened government radio admits that innocent miners might, make that “might”, have been murdered by the mine company and the government.
Only another 60 years or so and maybe it will “investigate” the state and federal government involvment in murdering civil rights workers.
Of course the great investigative writer that you interview makes it clear that he doesn’t quite believe that the miners were REALLY murdered. After all, as he says in the interview, Woody Gutherie probably “slanted the story”.
To say that, well, people were killed on bothg sides is the same as sahying that, well people were killed on both sides during WW II.
Don’t forget to panhandle for donations for the kind of radio that we “can’t get anywhere else”.
Posted by jonas, on August 19th, 2009 at 1:35 AM