skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

SCOTUS skeptical that state abortion bans conflict with federal health care law; Iowa advocates for immigrants push back on Texas-style deportation bill; new hearings, same arguments on both sides for ND pipeline project; clean-air activists to hold "die-in" Friday at LA City Hall.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

"Squad" member Summer Lee wins her primary with a pro-peace platform, Biden signs huge foreign aid bills including support for Ukraine and Israel, and the Arizona House repeals an abortion ban as California moves to welcome Arizona doctors.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The urban-rural death divide is widening for working-age Americans, many home internet connections established for rural students during COVID have been broken, and a new federal rule aims to put the "public" back in public lands.

The Little Known Story Of African-Americans In West Virginia’s Mines

play audio
Play

Tuesday, June 22, 2010   

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - African-Americans have worked in West Virginia's mines maybe as long as the coal mines have been here, but their stories have often been hidden underground. Now, the Upper Big Branch mine disaster is bringing to light their little-known history. Two of the 29 men who died at the Upper Big Branch mine at Montcoal in April were black.

Diana Zigler has worked nearly thirty years at a Pineville mine, driving a shuttle car before being sidelined by an injury. She says in 1980 she was a single mother from a mining family, and thought the job was such a blessing that she's happy to see her daughter go to work at the same mine.

"My daughter, she has a son and I raised her and her brother on the mining job. So she has a son, I let her have the same opportunity that I did."

Zigler is a member of the United Mine Workers of America, a union that was integrated from the day it was founded in 1890.

She says her father and brothers were known as good workers, and she had few problems in the mine when people realized she could do her job. And she says she went out of her way avoid problems.

"That's my motto: don't start nothing, it won't be nothing."

Zigler says sometimes being a woman was more of an issue, but again, she was accepted as soon as the other miners realized she could pull her weight. And she says there's a good deal of support and solidarity among women in the mines.

"With the white women and the African-American women, we were a family. We were there for each other. Cry on each other's shoulders when things wasn't right. When one hurt, all of us hurt."

An event on July 11 at Tamarack in Beckley will commemorate the "Soul of Coal," including Roosevelt Lynch and Joel Price, who died at Montcoal.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
Creedon Newell practices teaching construction skills in Wyoming's new career and technical educator bridge course, designed to encourage trades students and professionals to pursue a career in CTE teaching. (Photo by Rob Hill)

Social Issues

play sound

By Lane Wendell Fischer for the Shasta Scout via The Daily Yonder.Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service for the Public News …


Environment

play sound

By Naoki Nitta for Civil Eats.Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public Ne…

Social Issues

play sound

Concerns about potential voter intimidation have spurred several states to consider banning firearms at polling sites but so far, New Hampshire is …


Though Connecticut's benefits cliff persists, there are other programs helping people maintain benefits of some kind when their income pushes them over the limit. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

Today, groups working with lower-income families in Connecticut are raising awareness about the state's "benefits cliff" with a day of action…

Social Issues

play sound

Texas Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick has released 57 "interim charges," the topics he wants Senate committees to study in preparation for the 89th …

It is estimated the Wild Springs Solar Project in New Underwood, South Dakota, will offset 190,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year. (Adobe Stock)

Environment

play sound

The construction of more solar farms in the U.S. has been contentious but a new survey shows their size makes a difference in whether solar projects …

Social Issues

play sound

Minnesota's largest school district is at the center of a budget controversy tied to the recent wave of school board candidates fighting diversity pro…

play sound

Minnesota lawmakers are considering a measure which would force employers to properly classify certain trade union workers and others as employees rat…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021