By Austin Sauerbrei
In their new graphic novel, Raymond Tyler and Summer McClinton bring to life stories of labor leader and reformer Mary G. Harris “Mother” Jones and the West Virginia mine wars. With black and white illustrations and striking gashes of red throughout, Black Coal & Red Bandanas not only offers a glimpse into what shaped Jones and her advocacy, but uses her character to introduce the reader to the larger communities of everyday people who made up the backbone of the turn-of-the-century labor movement.
I am always thrilled to see the medium of comics being used to elevate and amplify undertold tales of working-class solidarity. The purpose of a book like this is not to detail every historical fact, but rather to spark our empathetic imaginations, and Black Coal and Red Bandanas hits the mark. McClinton’s illustrations and panel layouts bring humanity and humor to the “the most dangerous woman in America.” Jones’s early experiences of poverty and immigration, and the tragedy of her widowhood and loss of her children to yellow fever fold into the stories of her work and witness, bringing a depth to this familiar figure. The authors also give snapshots of Jones’s famed foul language (“Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living”) and stubbornness with a good-natured sense of accessibility to the person behind the work.
As the director of a 52-year-old organization with roots in the coal fields of East Tennessee, the stories in this book feel familiar to me. Many of our organization’s elders lived through a not-too-distant past when families were threatened and homes were burned for simply making public statements against the harmful practices of coal companies. Their collective action and courage throughout the 1970s and 1980s led to stronger regulations and eventually to the end of strip mining in Tennessee. But their struggles, their strategies, and their victories did not emerge in isolation.
The heroes of history and of Black Coal and Red Bandanas are the child workers and rednecks (think Red Bandanas), the community members caught in the tension between neighborly solidarity and the economic vise of the mine companies and everyday workers like Frank Keeney, who helped organize people into action. While time and place may alter the particulars, the principles of community organizing exemplified by Mother Jones are part of a lineage of people’s movements that continues today. From the recent massive wildcat teacher strikes in West Virginia, to the unprecedented victories of auto worker union drives in Tennessee and the countless unseen comings together of everyday people fighting for their communities, powerful stories of solidarity and collective action are being written as we speak.
Mother Jones was a pivotal figure to be sure, but Tyler and McClinton manage to pay tribute to her as well as show how she was one of many crucial figures, part of a tapestry of change makers who envision a better world and fight like hell to make it reality.
Austin Sauerbrei is a community organizer and artist based in McMinn County, Tennessee. He currently serves as the Director of Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment (SOCM), a 52-year-old, member-led organization in Tennessee. A lifelong comics enthusiast, he practices visual storytelling as a form of popular education. He is currently writing and illustrating Trouble! at Coal Creek, a graphic novel based on the events of the 1891-1892 miners’ insurrections known as the Coal Creek War (forthcoming from Haymarket Books in spring of 2025).
Image credit: Summer McClinton