Thursday, April 11All That Matters

Rednecks at Blair Mountain, 1921

Rednecks at Blair Mountain, 1921



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5 Comments

  • tabshiftescape

    Was this colorized at a later date? I didn’t know there was color photography back in the 1920s! This is neat!

  • spudtospartan

    “…redneck, in the 1910s through the 1930s, sometimes meant “Communist,” or at least “a miner who was a member of a labor union,” especially one on strike—made it clear that this usage was a strategic reclamation of a word that had been used as a slur. Some union organizers, Huber found, used red bandanas and the term redneck as a way to culturally integrate groups of white, black, and immigrant miners—who were often set against each other by owners eager to divide labor’s power—into a single identity. Because miners often wore red handkerchiefs to protect their faces and necks from coal dust, the bandana was a symbol of labor that was universal among ethnicities and races.”

  • Hungry-Pilot-70068

    Most forget that communists of Russia and the horrors of ussr were fresh in people’s minds. Not saying folks didn’t overreact but the reactions to the communist infiltration of us labor unions was at least understandable. I wonder how much more peaceful and quicker labor movement would have been without the Reds.

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