Digging Our Own Graves by Barbara Ellen Smith

Author:Barbara Ellen Smith [Smith, Barbara Ellen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General
ISBN: 9780877224518
Google: cZIeAQAAIAAJ
Publisher: Temple University Press
Published: 1987-01-15T03:31:11+00:00

There were about five or six people who set it up; all of us were in the Appalachian Volunteers, except for one. We set it up with the idea that it would last five years, that that was long enough for any institution to last. That if you set up any institution for change, it’s likely to get—harder, more rigid. And it lasted four and one-half years. In terms of raising hell and causing trouble, it was the most effective thing I ever worked with.29

As veterans of the war on poverty, the founders of DRA focused initially on “poor people’s” issues such as welfare rights rather than the struggle within the UMWA. However, the black lung strike in the winter of 1969 drew their attention to the economic power and latent discontent of coal miners. During the summer of 1969, DRA staff members began meeting with remnants of the Black Lung Association, and by the following year they had decided to concentrate their energy and resources on reactivating the black lung movement. Their strategy was to use the dissatisfaction with the federal compensation program as a means to revive the momentum of activism and keep together a network of dissidents; their ultimate goal was to build the organizational base that could overthrow Tony Boyle and reform the UMWA. One of DRA’s chief organizers recalled:

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