War in Tug River Valley

Drive down Route 49 as it takes you through the coalfields of southern West Virginia and into Kentucky, and what catches your eye before anything else is the beauty of the land. Even in the late summer the trees are dark green, and after a rain the mist rising out of the mountains hovers between the clouds and the tree line like smoke wrapped around long invisible strings.

This is a landscape of incongruities. A golf course close by a train yard. The white mansions and rolling lawns of coal executives not far from the trailer homes of coal workers. Then, just after the Sprouse Creek Processing
Plant, the signs begin to hit you. “Americans are Free, Scabs Go Home.” “Welcome to Poland.” “Ayatollah...