Biography
United Mine Workers of America organizer who led approximately 10,000 armed coal miners up Blair Mountain in West Virginia in August–September 1921 — the largest armed labor uprising in U.S. history. Indicted for treason against the State of West Virginia after the battle (the largest mass treason prosecution since the Whiskey Rebellion). His acquittal in 1922 caused the prosecution of approximately 985 other indicted miners to collapse; the last paroled in 1925. Continued UMWA organizing for decades and became district president.
