Organizing Cabin Creek: A conversation about power, grit and why we’re gonna win

	Kayford Mountain, Larry's homeplace, lies wrapped in morning mists, as a drill waits for its human operators to return and continue their mindless destruction of southern West Virginia. photo by Giles Ashford

On April 18, OVEC board member Larry Gibson and OVEC organizer Abe Mwaura met with Lois Armstrong, a longtime resident of Cabin Creek. Lois, along with others in the community of Coalville, managed to stop the construction of a coal loading dock, which would have been illegally close to folks’ homes in the area.

The following is part of the rich conversation that took place when Larry and Lois met. It begins abruptly when Abe realized that he should probably be recording the conversation – with their permission, of course:

Larry: It’s got to be a human rights story, linked to mountaintop removal.

Lois: But you don’t have any rights.

Larry: That’s it. That’s the whole point…

Lois: We don’t have any rights.

Larry: And you and I both remember the time… if somebody in our area worked for a non-union outfit, they wouldn’t tell anybody back then. Now, if a man works for a union, he doesn’t tell anybody.

Lois: He’s afraid of being ostracized too.

Larry: Sure. I don’t have the wisdom of time like you have. So I’m looking to you to kind of guide me and my friend here. What we’re trying to do is really trying to save some lives. We’re not trying to punish the workers. If these people had the choice, they wouldn’t be destroying their own back yard…

I can’t back up from this. When I was a kid people used to tell me I was crazy. But I still gotta stay with this. This is not a jobs issue. This is not simply an energy issue. It’s a human rights issue. You know that it is. Until we can strike a nerve in people, whatever the discomfort is in their lives at this point will still be there in the future.

Abe: How do we do that?

Lois: I don’t know.

Abe: How did they do it in the past?

Lois: [pause] I don’t think people used to be as intimidated as they are now.

Larry: No they weren’t.

Abe: Hmm. What’s changed?

Lois: [very deliberately] The feeling of powerlessness.

Abe: You think it’s more now than it used to be?

Lois: Oh yes.

Abe: Well what’s caused that? Why now, and compared to when? Ten years ago, 20 years ago?

Lois: Compared to when I was a kid. Yes. My grandfather was a very strong man. Very quiet – but very powerful. He didn’t shout or make a big noise. What he did, he did very quietly. And he would talk to different people there in Chelyan, when people would come in and try to change things. And he would do it one on one - you know go in and talk to the old-timers. But, I think people now feel hopeless. They feel overwhelmed with the power that others have – that they don’t feel they have.

Abe: And now I’m trying to figure out what is it that caused that. What changed in that amount of time that made them feel so powerless, so that we can figure out what it would take to make them feel powerful again. And it’s not just feel… really, we all have some sense of power – sometimes we just don’t use it. What is it that changed? They’ve lost their power – but why?

Larry: Could it be that the fact that the different leaders of not only the government, but even the union itself…

Lois: Even the courts…

Larry: …even the courts have caved in to the industries. That’s my opinion. That they have caved in to the industries. The people that you and I count on to oversee our rights are the ones who’ve given up our rights - as far as fighting for us.

Lois: But not only on the local level, but the state level, the national level – the whole thing.

Larry: Right. But it starts here. We have more power than we realize because we all have a voice – if we can get it together, and start getting people back together again, and start focusing on what they’ve lost. If we can do that, we can encourage them to take another look at themselves. Otherwise, like I said the miseries that they have now will only get worse.

Abe: And your father did that one on one?

Lois: My grandfather. Ya. Chelyan is still unincorporated, and it was those old timers who decided that they did not want to be incorporated. He was one of those old timers and he would say "if you give them a little bit of power they’ll take it all. As long as you don’t give them any power, they can’t take it."

Larry: Hmm. Well that’s the whole point. That’s what we’re saying. It’s time, with whatever power we’ve got left… we have to organize and direct it in a positive direction instead of letting it sit dormant. We can have all the power we’ve got now, and if its not being used, then what’s the use of having it… We used to have some choice in the direction we were going in, and now they’ve taken that away.

When I went to New York last week I called for the rebirth of resistance, and I never thought I’d hear such a roar of people saying "Yeah, we need the rebirth of resistance." Well yeah, we need a rebirth of resistance here to get back what the people have lost!

Abe: What does that mean? What does it look like?

Larry: Well right now there is not enough resistance. You know that…

We are natural organizers. We live in the area called the coalfields - where the union was strong. If we hadn’t organized in the beginning we would never have had anything.

We can’t back up… We gotta get that grit back. That’s what we’ve got to find in people today. They’ve got it; they’ve just forgotten that they have it.