Biography
W. M. Hightower was the president of the miners' union at Evarts, charged with murder after the 5 May 1931 Battle of Evarts, one of the more than a hundred National Miners' Union miners and sympathizers jailed in the Harlan County, Kentucky coal war. The Harlan County, Kentucky coal war of 1931 pitted the Communist-led National Miners' Union against the operators, Sheriff John Henry Blair's deputies, and the state militia. After the 5 May 1931 "Battle of Evarts," in which a gun battle left several dead, more than a hundred miners were jailed: dozens were indicted for murder and faced the electric chair, dozens more charged with "banding and confederating" or criminal syndicalism. Clarence Darrow and the ILD led the defense.
