'Matewan Massacre' a century ago embodied miners' struggles

The bullet holes in the brick wall of a former post office serve as a reminder of how Appalachian coal miners fought to improve the lives of workers a century ago.

Ten people were killed in a gun battle between miners, who were led by a local police chief, and a group of private security guards hired to evict them for joining a union in Matewan, a small “company town” in West Virginia.

Plans to publicly commemorate what became known as the Matewan Massacre have been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic until September at least. But historians consider the bloodshed on May 19, 1920, memorialized in the 1987 film “Matewan,” to be a landmark moment in the battles for workers’ rights that raged across the Appalachian coalfields in the early 20th century.

In this Tuesday, May 12, 2020, is a former corner post office in Matewan, W.Va. On May 19, 1920, coal miners, led by a local police chief, and detectives hired by a coal company to evict unionizing miners from their homes were involved in a gun battle on the street. Ten people died in the Matewan Massacre. (AP PhotoJohn Raby)

“The company town system was extremely oppressive," said Lou Martin, a history professor at Chatham University in Pittsburgh and a board member of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum in Matewan. "The company owned the houses, the only store in town, ran the church and controlled every aspect of the miners’ lives.”

Company towns were particularly prevalent in remote areas like southern West Virginia, which had the nation’s largest concentration of nonunion minors in 1920. And when the United Mine Workers came to town, coal companies retaliated.

The Stone Mountain Coal Co. hired Baldwin-Felts Agency detectives to evict union families from company-owned homes. Executive Albert Felts brought a dozen men to Matewan, including two who had been involved in violent strike-breaking efforts six years earlier in Ludlow, Colorado.

In this Tuesday, May 12, 2020, photo, West Virginia Mine Wars Museum tour guide Kim McCoy points to bullet holes still visible from a gunfight between miners and detectives hired by a coal company in Matewan, W.Va. Ten people died in the Matewan Massacre on May 19, 1920. McCoy is a great niece of Sid Hatfield, the Matewan police chief who sided with the miners and was involved in the shootings. Hatfield was shot to death a year later by coal company detectives. (AP PhotoJohn Raby)

The detectives removed the families and were headed out when they were confronted by a group led by Matewan Police Chief Sid Hatfield. Killed in the gunfire were Albert Felts, his brother, Lee, five other Baldwin-Felts detectives, Matewan Mayor Cabell Testerman and two bystanders.

Fifteen months later, Hatfield was gone, too, gunned down by Baldwin-Felts detectives on the McDowell County courthouse steps. He was 28.

More determined than ever to organize, miners marched by the thousands, leading to the 12-day Battle of Blair Mountain in the summer of 1921. Sixteen men died before they surrendered to federal troops.

In this Tuesday, May 12, 2020, photo the town of Matewan, W.Va, is shown through a river floodwall gate. A gunfight between miners and detectives hired by a coal company on a Matewan street left 10 people dead on May 19, 1920. It became known as the Matewan Massacre. (AP PhotoJohn Raby)

The UMW's campaign in southern West Virginia then stalled, along with labor setbacks in steel, meat packing and railroads following World War I. Appalachian coal operators felt they needed to remain nonunion in order to survive, Martin said.

“They believed everything else was against them — the terrain, freight rates,” he said. “But paying lower wages, they could stay in business and remain profitable.”

But “miners would long remember the lengths that the companies went to to prevent them from having basic rights that would help them organize and get a standard of living,” Martin said.

In this Tuesday, May 12, 2020, photo is David Hatfield at the bed and breakfast he owns in Matewan, W.Va. Hatfield is a great nephew of Sid Hatfield, a Matewan police chief who was in a gun battle involving miners and coal company detectives on May 19, 1920. The Matewan Massacre left 10 people dead. (AP PhotoJohn Raby)

In her 1925 autobiography, union organizer Mary Harris “Mother" Jones said she witnessed multiple conflicts between “the industrial slaves and their masters” during visits to West Virginia.

State officials were reluctant to challenge the coal operators.

“There is never peace in West Virginia because there is never justice,” Jones wrote. “'Medieval West Virginia!' With its tent colonies on the bleak hills! With its grim men and women! When I get to the other side, I shall tell God Almighty about West Virginia!”

In this Tuesday, May 12, 2020, photo is the gravestone of Sid Hatfield, in Buskirk, Ky. Hatfield was the police chief in nearby Matewan, W.Va He was involved in a gunfight between miners and detectives hired by a coal company. Hatfield survived the May 19, 1920, gunfight that left 10 people dead but he was fatally shot a year later. (AP PhotoJohn Raby)

When workers were finally guaranteed the right to collectively bargain in 1933 as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, West Virginia coal miners joined the UMW in droves, Martin said.

The UMW also bankrolled the organization that would become the United Steelworkers, and with John L. Lewis leading the UMW from 1920 to 1960, national membership peaked at about 500,000 during World War II.

The union helped push through major improvements to health, safety and pensions, across the U.S. workforce. But over the next half century, mechanization, fierce industry opposition and the rise of competing fuel sources severely reduced coal jobs and union membership.

In this Tuesday, May 12, 2020, photo is a floodwall protecting the town of Matewan, W.Va, from the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River. (AP PhotoJohn Raby)

The Stone Mountain Coal Co. is long gone, but Matewan still stands, as does its union hall. The town has lost half of its population since 1980, but it has survived the shootings, three dozen floods from the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River before a floodwall was built, a 1992 fire that destroyed several downtown businesses and the opioid crisis that has ravaged the state.

Feelings about unions are mixed, but locals say the movie helped lift a shroud of silence that kept people from even mentioning the shootings. Resident Wilma Steele, whose husband is a retired union miner, said she didn't read about the battles of Matewan and Blair Mountain until she went to college.

Now the Kentucky border town of about 430 residents leans on tourism about the massacre, as well as the famous feud between the Hatfields of West Virginia and the McCoys of Kentucky. A vast network of ATV trails draws also draws recreational tourists.

In this Tuesday, May 12, 2020, photo is a mural depicting miners working in coal mines in Matewan, W.Va. On May 19, 1920, a group of miners, who were led by a local police chief, and detectives hired by a coal company to evict unionizing miners from their homes were involved in a gun battle on the street. Ten people died in the Matewan Massacre. (AP PhotoJohn Raby)

Museum tour guide Kim McCoy, whose maiden name is Hatfield, married a great-grandson of the McCoy family. She grew up in Matewan's coal camps and is a great niece both of family patriarch William Anderson “Devil Anse” Hatfield and Sid Hatfield, who resisted when hired guns evicted his neighbors a century ago.

“The Hatfield name is very distinctive in our area,” McCoy said. “Sid being part of the Matewan Massacre and really standing up for the miners and the miners' basic human rights, there's a lot of honor in that.”

David Hatfield, who operates a Matewan bed-and-breakfast and is Sid Hatfield's great nephew, said Americans today benefit from what the miners strived for, including better working conditions.

"It's important to me because my family helped bring that about in some part," he said.

Online:

http://www.historicmatewan.com

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia bombed Yemen's port city of Mukalla on Tuesday after a weapons shipment from the United Arab Emirates arrived for separatist forces in the war-torn country, and warned that it viewed Emirati actions as “extremely dangerous.”

The bombing followed tensions over the advance of Emirates-backed separatist forces known as the Southern Transitional Council. The council and its allies issued a statement supporting the UAE's presence, even as others allied with Saudi Arabia demanded that Emirati forces withdraw from Yemen in 24 hours' time.

The UAE called for “restraint and wisdom” and disputed Riyadh’s allegations. But shortly after that, it said it would withdraw its remaining troops in Yemen. It remained unclear whether the separatists it backs will give up the territory they recently took.

The confrontation threatened to open a new front in Yemen's decade-long war, with forces allied against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels possibly turning their sights on each other in the Arab world's poorest nation.

It also further strained ties between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, neighbors on the Arabian Peninsula that increasingly have competed over economic issues and regional politics, particularly in the Red Sea area. Tuesday’s airstrikes and ultimatum appeared to be their most serious confrontation in decades.

“I expect a calibrated escalation from both sides. The UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council is likely to respond by consolidating control,” said Mohammed al-Basha, a Yemen expert and founder of the Basha Report, a risk advisory firm.

“At the same time, the flow of weapons from the UAE to the STC is set to be curtailed following the port attack, particularly as Saudi Arabia controls the airspace.”

A military statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency announced the strikes on Mukalla, which it said came after ships arrived there from Fujairah in the UAE.

“The ships’ crew had disabled tracking devices aboard the vessels, and unloaded a large amount of weapons and combat vehicles in support of the Southern Transitional Council’s forces,” the statement said.

“Considering that the aforementioned weapons constitute an imminent threat, and an escalation that threatens peace and stability, the Coalition Air Force has conducted this morning a limited airstrike that targeted weapons and military vehicles offloaded from the two vessels in Mukalla,” it added.

It wasn't clear if there were any casualties.

The Emirati Foreign Ministry hours later denied it shipped weapons but acknowledged it sent the vehicles “for use by the UAE forces operating in Yemen.” It also claimed Saudi Arabia knew about the shipment ahead of time.

The ministry called for “the highest levels of coordination, restraint and wisdom, taking into account the existing security challenges and threats.”

The Emirati Defense Ministry later said it would withdraw its remaining troops from Yemen over “recent developments and their potential repercussions on the safety and effectiveness of counter-terrorism operations.” It gave no timeline for the withdrawal. The UAE broadly withdrew its forces from Yemen years earlier.

Yemen’s anti-Houthi forces not aligned with the separatists declared a state of emergency Tuesday and ended their cooperation with the UAE. They issued a 72-hour ban on border crossings in territory they hold, as well as entries to airports and seaports, except those allowed by Saudi Arabia. It remained unclear whether that coalition, governed under the umbrella of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council, would remain intact.

The Southern Transitional Council’s AIC satellite news channel aired footage of the strike's aftermath but avoided showing damage to the armored vehicles.

“This unjustified escalation against ports and civilian infrastructure will only strengthen popular demands for decisive action and the declaration of a South Arabian state,” the channel said.

The attack likely targeted a ship identified as the Greenland, a vessel flagged out of St. Kitts. Tracking data analyzed by the AP showed the vessel had been in Fujairah on Dec. 22 and arrived in Mukalla on Sunday. The second vessel could not be immediately identified.

Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office, urged combatants to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, like the port, saying any disruption to its operations “risks affecting the already dire humanitarian situation and humanitarian supply chains.”

Mukalla is in Yemen's Hadramout governorate, which the council seized in recent days. The port city is some 480 kilometers (300 miles) northeast of Aden, which has been the seat of power for anti-Houthi forces after the rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014.

Yemen, on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula off East Africa, borders the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The war there has killed more than 150,000 people, including fighters and civilians, and created one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters.

The Houthis, meanwhile, have launched attacks on hundreds of ships in the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, disrupting regional shipping. The U.S., which earlier praised Saudi-Emirati efforts to end the crisis over the separatists, has launched airstrikes against the rebels under both Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

Tuesday's strike in Mukalla comes after Saudi Arabia targeted the council in airstrikes Friday that analysts described as a warning for the separatists to halt their advance and leave the governorates of Hadramout and Mahra.

The council had pushed out forces there affiliated with the Saudi-backed National Shield Forces, another group in the anti-Houthi coalition.

Those aligned with the council have increasingly flown the flag of South Yemen, which was a separate country from 1967-1990. Demonstrators have been rallying to support political forces calling for South Yemen to secede again.

A statement Tuesday from Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry directly linked the council's advance to the Emiratis for the first time.

“The kingdom notes that the steps taken by the sisterly United Arab Emirates are extremely dangerous,” it said.

Allies of the council later issued a statement in which they showed no sign of backing down.

Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

This frame grab from video broadcast by Saudi state television on Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2025, shows what the kingdom describes as a shipment of weapons and armored vehicles coming from the United Arab Emirates, at Mukalla, Yemen. (Saudi state television via AP)