User:NoPatriarchy/sandbox

Setting
The national United Mine Workers of America coal strike of 1897 was officially settled for Illinois District 12 in January of 1898, with the vast majority of operators accepting the union terms: forty cents per ton, an 8-hour day, and union recognition. However, several mine owners in Carterville,  Virden, and  Pana, refused or abrogated. They attempted to run with African-American strikebreakers from Alabama and Tennessee. At the same time, lynching and racial exclusion were increasingly practiced by local white mining communities. Racial segregation was enforced within and among coal mines which were organized by the UMWA.

Precursor
In Carterville, Illinois 60 miles north of Cairo, at the southern tip of the state, mine owner Samuel Brush imported African-American strikebreakers from Sweetwater, Tennessee. They arrived May 20, 1898 in the new all-black company camp named Dewmaine, next to all-white Carterville. Some white miners worked as strikebreakers too, and production continued for over a year. After a partial walkout of his non-union miners (the whites and some blacks), Brush escalated. He tried to import 40 of the Birmingham, Alabama strikebreakers, with their families, that had just been ejected from Pana in a white riot. That riot resulted in a union victory. The train from Pana, carrying Brush, the strikebreakers, and guards, had stopped at Lauder (near Carterville), when UMWA leaders and strikers, some white and some black, ordered the conductor not to continue. He refused, and they opened fire from the platform and from cover in a nearby field. Anna Karr, wife of one of the strikebreakers, was killed and 20 others on the train were injured. Nine men were accused, but none were convicted at trial This was a precursor to the riot of September 17.

The Riot
In July, 1899, there was fighting between whites and blacks in Carterville, with no dead and a few wounded. The governor called in troops, but on September 11, they were removed. On September 15, several blacks tried to enter Carterville, but were driven back by white miners. On September 17, a party of 13 African-Americans, some armed, tried to walk from the mine to the Carterville train station on personal business. They were met at the station by 30 armed whites, and, according to contemporary accounts, this is when the shooting began. Shots were fired and some blacks scattered through the streets and some retreated down the tracks toward home. The latter were pursued by the white miners. “One of the black men fired at their pursuers, and the miners responded by returning fire. Five of the blacks died instantly, and several others were injured. The remaining group made it back to the mine, and nearly 200 blacks stormed the mine’s storehouse, where there were guns, but Brush’s son prevented them from arming themselves.”

Aftermath
Troops were called back in. Twelve whites were charged, none convicted. Production at the mine continued with the former strikebreakers until 1906, when Samuel Brush sold out to the Madison Coal Company. The new owner recognized the UMWA and the African-American miners became members. Production resumed again. By this time, the black Dewmaine camp had actually become a town with a post office, school, and a clinic with two doctors. A normal, if not prosperous, culture was established, as in any small white coal-town. The death knell for Dewmaine came in 1923, however, when Madison Coal closed its mine. .

Legacy
Carterville, in this early chapter of the Coal Wars, had a very different racial legacy, when compared to Virden and Pana. American-American coal miners suffered losses, but were not expelled for good, as in those conflicts. They were able to establish themselves, for twenty-four years, in a Northern industrial environment, with steady employment, and even union representation. Alternative research has re-analyzed black strikebreaking as a racial survival strategy to deal with the dominant society , rather than as a breach of class solidarity.