Do Rednecks Wear White on Labor Day?

Originally written on September 4th, 2023 on the first incarnation of Meridian Verso

Today is Labor Day. Rarely in casual conversation does the origin of Labor Day ever come up; I almost never hear anyone mention the labor movement or even find it agonizingly ironic that the first thing folks want to do on their day off is eat out at a restaurant, where the service class is mandated to labor. I almost never hear any discussion about the American labor movement, or the people who died to make the 8 hour work day or the 5 day work week a reality. The most I’ve heard in conversation today is to not wear white. Then I started thinking about the color red.

Red; red like the blood on the street or the red on their necks, the soot on their denim and the dust in their eyes. Red, red, red.

We are surrounded by devices that require electricity, phones, computers, fans, all of which, we tangentally know, are powered by coal or something. Folks don’t think about it too much. But who mines that coal? How does that coal make it from the bowels of the earth into the hands of electric companies? We know coal miners existed but aren’t they something from the past? What did they do in that past? Why do we call them rednecks?

It’s a common misconception that the term ‘redneck’ refers to rural (white) farmers working somewhere in places urbanites like to forget, but historically, it refers to the red handkerchiefs the coal miners wore around their necks at the Battle of Blair Mountain.

The Battle of Blair Mountain was the largest labor uprising in American history, where a multiracial coalition of about 10,000 striking coal miners, led by the United Mine Workers union, were brutalized by the West Virginia police, Logan County Sheriff’s department, the national guard and U.S. army, all of whom combined to outnumber the miners 3:1. The numbers for miner casualties range from 50 to 100 and the opposing side only saw 13 – 33. For five days from August to September 1921, the armed workers went on strike and fought to protest their deadly working conditions, insufficient wages, and lack of control over their own lives. The vast majority of these workers lived in what were called ‘company towns’ or residential areas that were owned by the mining company themselves, which meant that any sort of union activity or recruitment not only meant termination but also eviction. The mining companies’ power loomed over every aspect of these workers’ lives which meant that there was no real incentive to keep working conditions safe. Death was found in every corner of their lives. The battle ended when, as Abby Lee Ayers in Smithsonian Magazine phrased it, “one million rounds were fired” (2007).

Now their spirits are left forgotten in the mines where they once suffered. As we take these fruits of the movement’s labor for granted, we only remember not to wear white.