We spent Friday, and Saturday
\nmorning, at the Rural Appalachian Improvement League (RAIL) in Mullens, West
\nVirginia. This is a town of about 2,000 in the heart of coal country. We saw a
\nfew flat-topped mountains on our way in, as well as machinery ticking away, and
\ncoal cars heaped full of the dusty black stuff. Mullens was a \u201crailroad town\u201d
\nwhich used to be a hot place in the thirties and forties, or so the rumors go \u2013
\nif you\u2019d go there on a Saturday night, you wouldn\u2019t be able to walk through the
\nstreets, for so many people were packed in, shoulder-to-shoulder, partying.
\nNeedless to say there are more abandoned buildings than crowds these days; ever
\nsince coal became a mainly mechanized business, the jobs have dwindled. These days
\nthere are only 800 mining jobs in a county of 20,000, where the coal and timber
\ncompanies combine to control the use of over 85% of the land. The result of
\nthis corporate control of land is a systematic approach to controlling the
\nlivelihood of the residents of Mullens. In the early mining days, the coal
\ntowns would literally forbid gardening \u2013 so that the residents would be
\ncompletely reliant on the company store and hence unable to strike. Today\u2019s
\nmethods are less overt but no less effective. As a result of the lack of public
\ncontrol of their land, Mullens\u2019 freedom has been hidden behind an invisible
\nveil of corporate non-accountability. <\/p>\n
RAIL is working to bring freedom
\nand hope back to Mullens through various community projects. The projects are
\nheaded up by Jack and Rebekah. Jack arrived two years ago, funded by a grant
\n\u201cto start a farmers\u2019 market.\u201d He found there were no farmers… (dramatic
\npause)…. so instead his work shifted toward local agriculture. We saw the
\nfruits of his <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We spent Friday, and Saturday morning, at the Rural Appalachian Improvement League (RAIL) in Mullens, West Virginia. This is a town of about 2,000 in the heart of coal country. We saw a few flat-topped mountains on our way in,…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n