January 26, 1977 [Harlan County U.S.A.]

Harlan County U.S.A., Barbara Kopple’s documentary of a 1973 miners’ strike in Kentucky, takes us deep into the woods and down into the mines, where good country people do not spread checked tablecloths for covered-dish suppers while breezes sway the willows and cicadas sing, with a county fair in the distance sending up the thin tootle of a calliope—no, that is another country.

Here in Harlan County it’s a long hard push, the United Mine Workers of America trying hard (and they have their own troubles) while the miners themselves stand in the dark, company thugs firing off a round or two to clear the way for scabs.

—And often it’s the women who stand tallest, the miners’ wives keeping things organized, the kind of plain-faced ladies that Flannery O’Connor warned us about, Jesus in their hearts and the Devil in their mouths, packing a little iron themselves, tit for tat. While the film’s discussion of troubles in the union is illuminating, a record that needs setting straight, it’s those women who remain with me, a little self-conscious, playing for the camera a little—but I won’t argue: it’s their show, and I’m just a city boy safe in my air conditioning, watching them sweat—while their husbands, coughing as they always have, wait on a miracle.