The Battle of Blair Mountain was one of the largest civil uprisings in U.S. history, and for its 90th anniversary the Sierra Club helped organize almost 800 marchers to re-enact the 60-mile trek to the crest of Blair Mountain from Marmet, West Virginia.
Over the course of five days, hundreds of environmental advocates braved extreme heat to call for the abolition of mountaintop removal mining (MTR) and to have Blair Mountain put back on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2009, coal interests pressured the National Park Service to delete Blair Mountain from the list, which removed the site’s protection against MTR.
The Sierra Club also created an action alert to demand protection for the mountain—and within 48 hours, our supporters sent more than 24,000 messages to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WV DEP).
In addition to the march, the Sierra Club has pending legal actions to protect Blair Mountain, including a challenge to the delisting from the National Register of Historic Places, and a petition with the WV DEP to have Blair Mountain placed off-limits to coal mining operations.
Read more in the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, and Huffington Post.
(Image: Marchers show their support for protecting Blair Mountain.)
