Center for Coalfield Justice

Join us TONIGHT for "March Forth: Action & Activism.," a John McCutcheon virtual benefit concert benefitting Highlander Center at 7:30pm EST. Purchase a ticket... here: https://boxoffice.mandolin.com//john-mccutcheon-march-fort This concert will feature music that informs, inspires, and motivates. Says John, "Music can move hips, hearts, and, sometimes, mountains." John's introduction to folk music was via 1963's March on Washington. From the very beginning, he saw music as connected to something greater than mere entertainment. It was inclusive, participatory, and powerful. In his 50 year career, he has written music celebrating the struggles that ordinary people have endured fighting for dignity and respect...in the mine, in the mill, in the classroom, the kitchen, the factory, or the office. His songs can be hilarious or they can be angry. They tell the small stories that reveal great truths. A portion of every ticket sold benefits Common Ground on the Hill! This event is produced in cooperation with the following organizations: Walkabout Clearwater Coffeehouse (White Plains, NY) Austin Sanctuary Network (Austin, TX) Union Church (Berea, KY) Eighth Step (Schenectady, NY) Highlander Center (New Market, TN) The Alliance for Appalachia (London, KY) Woody Guthrie Center (Tulsa, OK) The Church Council of Greater Seattle (Seattle, WA) WhyHunger (New York, NY)

This article is a good overview article about what is going on with some Appalachian coal bankruptcy cases and fallouts.

We were all pretty freaked out by Luke’s diagnosis, but we were told that it was so rare, Heaven Sensky, a twenty-four-year-old organizer with the Center for Coalfield Justice, a local nonprofit, told me. After Mitchell was diagnosed, she said, We were, like, ‘Wait a minute, you told us it was so rare. Who’s next?’

"You only have to look at what has happened to the downtowns in Bellaire, Steubenville, Wheeling, and Waynesburg to know that jobs and incomes haven’t been growing," said ORVI Executive Director Joanne Kilgour. The new #FrackalachiaReport quantifies the paltry economic returns of the Appalachian fracking boom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4kqRkBWd0s&t=1s

Over the course of a decade, several young men in Cecil, a small town in southwestern Pennsylvania, were diagnosed with a rare and deadly form of bone cancer. Their families began to wonder whether it was related to fracking in the area. http://nyer.cm/iKzGwPo