High School Teacher Gives Voice to Miner Ghosts
Thursday, June 19, 2014
(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)Long after Kevin Corley, a high school history teacher
from Springfield, Illinois, recorded interviews in the 1980’s with elderly
miners and their families for the Abraham Lincoln Historical Museum, those
voices haunted him. Eventually, he wove their words into an unpublished novel
that he sent around to friends and family. When a copy found its way to Tim
Sheard, the working class writer and publisher knew he had an instant classic on
his hands. Corley and Sheard discussed Corley's hisotrical novel“Sixteen
Tons” with United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts at the AFL-CIO’s
June 10 Book Talk. Roberts had clearly read and relished the novel’s gripping
story about the coal mine wars and the fight to establish the mine workers’
union, and had a lot of questions and comments to share. Most of the dialogue
and nearly all the characters are based on real historical people who lived in
the early 20th century, from 1898-1930. Corley and Sheard, the Hard Ball Press
publisher, talked about the importance of teaching “real labor history” to
American workers and youth, especially how labor activists can encourage schools
and libraries, churches and unions to “promote good working class literature
that tells the histories not allowed in schools or in the mass media.” Both
the author and publisher are now reaching out to labor activists and readers in
an effort to build grassroots interest in the historical novel. Click here to
see a video of part of Corley’s talk
and here for a
video of Roberts reading President Rich Trumka's welcoming remarks.