Interview with Cleatus and Louise Burns

In this joint interview Cleatus and Louise Burns discuss working conditions and mining methods in the Alabama coal mines, beginning in the 1930s (e.g. mining with mules). Cleatus Burns describes early labor movement efforts and recounts the eventual unionization of the mines. He also describes living in a company camp and some of the earliest union meetings. Mr. Burns also describes trying to organize the De Bardelben mines as well as union organizers being shot at by company guards. He explains that people who lived in the rural areas around the mines would often help union members by giving them food from their farms. According to Mr. and Mrs. Burns, Bankhead was the first mine to strike, due to low pay. Louise Burns describes growing up in a mining camp in Mississippi. She explains that women canned food in the summer and quilted in the winter. She also describes rural life, her early education and farming. Cleatus Burns says he liked mining; he explains that the pay was good, and the mines were cool in the summer and warm in the winter. He does admit that mining was dangerous, describing explosions, working in 18 inches of space and laboring in knee-deep water. Mr. and Mrs. Burns also describe life during the Depression, explaining that they don't know what people would have done were it not for the WPA