Something's Rising: Appalachians Fighting Mountaintop Removal Read Online Free Page B

places still, where they first did it.
    The memories are all about little things, like the head of the holler. There was a knob that stuck up, and we called it the Tater Knob. It looked just like the end of a potato. There was a hole up there and you could throw a little pebble down it and you could hear it going and going and going. It was probably down in someold coal mine. But maybe it was a natural cave or something. It was a place we used to play, and they leveled that, they took away the Tater Knob. That's the thing you think of. I don't think, “Oh, what they're doing to the land!” I think, “They took away the Tater Knob!” It's that connection that's being lost that's so important, especially to the ones who remember that land, who know that land, who played in those places.
    They're destroying our memories, but they're destroying our whole country—you know what I mean by that, that usage of that word, with “whole country” meaning our region.
    I was raised to speak up and say what I believed in. That was part of our education. My dad used to read every book he could get ahold of. He had the Bible and the Pilgrim's Progress and a few other big tomes. Just anything he could get. He'd just read, read, read. And he taught school, too. He taught there, round home, and started a subscription school when there wasn't any school; it goes back that far. 9 He was all in favor of education. Even before we went to school we were taught that everybody was the same in the sight of God, no matter what color they were or what country they came from. And we all believed that. And the older girls went to Berea, and Berea was a big advocate for not having racism or anything like that. Dad wanted us to go to school, and many kids didn't get to go to school, they were encouraged to just stay at the house and worked in the corn. School had seasons when they would let you off for fodder pulling or planting. Lots of people would say, “I didn't go to school, so you don't have to go to school.” Our family was different, and we were very lucky to have my parents, who told us to get an education. Hindman 10 used to send its best students to Wellesley, so I had two sisters who went there.
    The first protest songs I ever remember hearing were by the Singing Miner, George Davis, who was always on the Hazard radio station. 11 He was real popular, and everybody listened to him.
    Then the first song I ever wrote that could be considered a protest song was just my own reaction to what was happening. I didn't think anyone else would ever listen to it. “Black Waters”was the first one. George and I were going over Pine Mountain, and we saw some water that was polluted from the slag heaps. The water was all discolored, red or yellow, a lot of it was black. And when it flooded around people's houses it was all black from the strip-mining and such. So we were on that trip and we saw the water and I just started singing, “Black waters, black waters, run down through the land,” and I went home and over the next few weeks I wrote it.
    And then there was “Blue Diamond Mines,” which George was real important on. We were driving on a big trip, and we went through a big pine forest. I was singing “In the pines/in the pines/ where the sun/never shines,” 12 and George said, “Why don't you do a song called ‘In the mines/in the mines,'” and I thought, oh, that's silly. 13 Then later on I felt, well, that is good, that's a very natural thing to sing.
    I was very much aware that they were protest songs when I wrote them, and so I didn't want anyone to bother my mother, who was an old lady, like I am now. I didn't want anyone coming up to her and saying, “Your daughter's up in New York singing protest songs. What is she doing? She must be a Communist.” So I took a pseudonym: Than Hall. This was in tribute to my grandpa, but also to protect my family. 14
    And those kinds of songs sounded better coming from a man than a woman, could