Harlan County USA

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow, Adam Sanchez, and Tim Swinehart.
A role-play activity engages students in building solidarity among different groups and organizations fighting fossil fuels and searching for alternatives.

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. 15 pages.
Using chocolate chip cookie “mining,” this lively activity takes a critical look at how the coal industry teaches the impact of coal mining.

Picture book. By George Ella Lyon. Artwork by Christopher Cardinale. 2011. 40 pages.
This children’s book tells the story of a classic union song written in 1931 and the harsh conditions under which it was written.

Profile. Zinn Education Project.
Brief bios of two dozen women of note in the labor movement.

Film. Directed by Bill Duke. 1985. Digitally restored in 2020. 118 minutes.
Set during World War I, two African-American men deal with racism in the workplace and the labor union.

Film. Written and directed by John Sayles. 1987. 132 minutes.
A feature film depicting a strike in a mining town in Appalachia and the struggle for solidarity across racial lines.

Film. By Herbert Biberman. 1954. 94 minutes.
This classic, powerful film about a miners strike in New Mexico can be used to teach about the intersection of class, race, national origin, and gender.

A labor uprising to protest convict leasing led to the Coal Creek War.

An explosion at the Banner Mine in Alabama killed 128 men, almost all of them African American prisoners of the state who were forced to work in the mine under the convict leasing system.

The National Guard fired on striking miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado.

The Battle of Blair Mountain was the climax of two mine wars fought in the West Virginia coalfields.

NASA scientist James Hansen testified to Congress stating the greenhouse effect had been detected.