Jon Foley: "To live for people that you, yourself, might not even live to see."

Jon Foley in a screen shot I edited from his PBS NewsHour video.

Today Foley shared the graduation address he gave for the University of Minnesota’s College of Continuing Education and gave me permission to publish it here.

Foley (website, twitter, email, facebook) is the Director of the University of MN's Institute on The Environment (IonE).  Below his address, see my thoughts...

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Preface

Thank you all for the opportunity to share this day with you. I especially want to thank Dean Mary Nichols, who asked me to be here today.

It’s really an honor to speak at the graduation ceremony of the University of Minnesota’s College of Continuing Education. You are an extraordinary group of students. Some of you have created your own degree programs, others have finished advanced degrees; many of you did this while working or raising a family. You have shown us how to work harder, be more committed, and be more creative. You have shown us the best of the University of Minnesota, and we’re all extremely proud of you.

I’m not exactly sure what Dean Nichols had in mind when she asked me to speak at your ceremony. Normally, I speak about global environmental issues and international affairs. But I really don’t think that you want to hear a speech about the greenhouse effect or tropical rainforests today. Instead, I’m guessing you want to hear something more inspiring.

I’m probably not qualified to do that, but I’ll see what I can do.

Part I. Ordinary People

To start off, I want to tell you the stories of ordinary people – ordinary people who did extraordinary things.

The first person I want to tell you about was named James Edward, or J. Edward for short. He was born in 1878. His father was an Irish-American bricklayer who worked himself to death at the age of 32, when J. Edward was only a little boy.

Even though he was only a child, he had to start working to support his mother and siblings, and he worked every day of his life until he turned 90. His story is the quintessential American story: He started with nothing – no money, no connections, and no education – but he worked incredibly hard, focused on helping his family and his community, and eventually became a successful businessman and community leader.

Years later, as he lay dying, his family got a little bigger: two days before he died, he became a grandfather one more time. His daughter-in-law was giving birth in the same hospital, one floor away.

Now I want to tell you the story of the mother. Her name was Joan, and she gave birth to a little boy. But there was a problem: The boy was born with a severe bacterial infection that covered his entire body, and he was not expected to live through the night. But Joan refused to accept that, and she took the boy home to take care of him, knowing that leaving him at the hospital was a death sentence.

She went without sleep for days, popping every blister on the skin of that screaming infant, boiling every scrap of fabric that touched his skin, and managed to keep the infection at bay. The boy lived. For years afterward, doctors told her that she saved her son’s life. Without her determination, there was no chance he would have survived.

Like her father-in-law, she stood up when the chips were down, and gave everything she had for someone else. And that boy grew up knowing that he owed his life to his mother.

Unfortunately, his story was going turn out differently.

He could not help his mother when, 15 years later, she was diagnosed with ALS (or Lou Gerhig’s disease) – a fatal, degenerative neurological disease. He could do nothing while she was in agony, slowly dying in front of him. Here was the woman who gave him his life, and then against all odds saved it, and he was completely powerless to help her. That feeling of helplessness still haunts him to this day.

The last thing his mother told him was that she was ready to die – it would release her from the incredible pain she was in – but she “wasn’t done yet” being his mother. Her last words to him were, “I can’t be there for you any more, so I need you to promise me something. I need you to be the best person you can be.”

She gave him one last gift: the gift of setting a lifelong direction. And that boy swore that he would do everything he could to follow it.

She died the next day. And he has been trying to figure out how to live up to that promise ever since.

As you might have guessed, I was that boy. (Forgive me for being a little choked up, but I have never spoken publicly about this before today.)

My mother, Joan, and grandfather, J. Edward, were ordinary people, but they did extraordinary things.

When things became difficult, they didn’t wallow in their sadness or self-pity: They rolled up their sleeves and did something for those around them, and for those that would live long after them. In short, they lived good lives, and they gave something to the future.

I bet you all have stories like this in your family too. Mine isn’t unique or special at all; it’s just the one I happen to know. You all have other versions of the same story – of ordinary people who did extraordinary things. And I think we should all give thanks to them today, on the occasion on your graduation.

Part II. The American Dream

What did these people – in your family and mine – all have in common? They all lived according to a dream – something we used to call the “American Dream”.

Unlike the current so-called American Dream – which seems to be about getting rich quick, without working very hard, having a fancy house and car, and living like there’s no tomorrow – the old American Dream is about building a better future for our families and our communities. It’s a dream that I still believe in, not out of some dopey sense of patriotism, but out of a sense of awe.

It’s a dream that says we should work hard, play by the rules, give something back to our community, and make sure our children have a better life than we did.

It’s a dream that says creating a better future for our families, our community, and our world is more important than living comfortably in the present.

This dream isn’t uniquely American, of course. Many people and cultures around the world share the values of hard work and building a better future for our children. But it’s the dream that built this country.

But lately many of us seem to have forgotten that dream. In fact, today we hear people say that we should try to live “in the moment”, as if that’s the secret to a meaningful life.

I don’t believe that.

The lesson our ancestors taught us is that the most meaningful life is not the one lived for ourselves, but it is the one lived for others. They taught us that the key to a great life is to live for people that you, yourself, might not even live to see.

Why have we forgotten this important lesson?

Part III. Inflection Point

Today, it is critically important for us to remember the lessons of our ancestors.

In fact, in the whole sweep of human history, there has never been a more crucial moment to live up to their example. Why is that? It’s because the world is under more pressure now than it has ever been.

Consider the following. Between 1960 and 2010, a period of only 50 years (roughly the lifetime of many of us in this room), the world’s population more than doubled, and the world’s economic output increased by seven fold. Imagine that: Twice as many people, with an economy seven times bigger! That growth required a three-fold increase in water use, a three-fold increase in food consumption, and a four-fold increase in global energy use.

Not only did this period of time see more change than any other in history, it has changed more than all human history combined. In short, we are living through an inflection point in the history of our civilization.

In many ways, the world has been getting better. We are living longer, more prosperous and safer lives than anyone else in history, largely thanks to the hard work of previous generations.

But we still face the specters of poverty, inequality, disease, environmental degradation, and climate change. We need to start changing our ways and remember the lessons of our ancestors, or we will leave behind a degraded and more impoverished world for future generations.

Whether we like it or not, the fate of the world depends on what we do now. What we decide to do with this time – our time – in history will not only have impacts on the lives of our children, it will shape the world for thousands of years to come.

You and I didn’t ask to be here. But here we are. And we are in the drivers seat in the most important moment in human history.

So what are we going to do with it?

Part IV. Hope and History

As we look to the future, what lessons should we follow to help guide us along the way?

First, I think we should be guided by hope. Not a blind optimism that everything will work out somehow, but rather a rock-solid faith in humanity – a faith built on knowing that, at our best, we can be an amazing people.

And I think we need to be guided by a sense of history. We are at our best when we see that we are connected to those who came before us, those we share the world with today, and those will come after we are gone.

I think we’re supposed to play a part in the great, unfolding drama of human history. We are only here today because of the sacrifices, hard work, and accomplishments of countless generations before us. And I believe that we have a moral responsibility to take our turn at the wheel, and play our part of this continuing drama.

Of course, we could view this as a burden, but I see it as an incredible gift – a way to be part of something so much bigger than ourselves.

And have no doubt: What we do with our lives can have a real impact on the world, today and for generations to come.

Part V. Final Wish

So, what will you do as you move into the next chapter of your life, with your new knowledge, your new skills, and your new degree?

My hope for you is that you do something great, to live a good and meaningful life, and to make sure you give something to the future.

And I hope one of your children or grandchildren will be on this stage in 2078 – 65 years from now, 200 years after my grandfather was born – telling stories about you, and the great things you did for the them and for the world.

I’m sure they will be incredibly proud of you. I know we all are.

Thank you for the chance to speak to you today.

And congratulations to the Class of 2013!

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My thoughts on Foley's address

The graduation of the Class of 2013 is on my mind, as here in Blacksburg, Virginia Tech graduated yesterday. 

I "met" Foley on Facebook, when he sent me a "friend invite."  Usually, I only respond to folks I know either through interaction in life or correspondence, but I found Foley's work interesting and was flattered he'd want to connect.

The IonE, which he directs, participates in the Natural Capitol Project with Stanford University, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, several government agencies and others "to develop new approaches to integrating economics and ecology—with a focus on how to assess the value of 'ecosystem goods and services.'"

In the video from which I took the screen shot,  Foley talks about how farming is "canary in the coal mine" for climate change and that long term we need to do more than adapt.  While "goods and services" help us make an argument for environmental integrity, I'm also concerned about how we can go further.

For instance, I guess Ed Rehbein could take a photograph if there is only a single stand of wild columbine left, but I remember how the late Larry Gibson and Judy Bonds and so many others describe (and mourn for) mountains such as Kayford and Coal River in WV.
 
They, as  Foley and his grandfather and mother, live to make things better not just for their family (and friends and communities), but "for people that they  "might not even live to see."

Larry Gibson 1946-2012: Rachel Parsons--One Step Up: Keeping Larry’s Legacy

This photo is by Wendy Johnston.  It accompanied the following essay by Rachel Parsons of Athens, WV, originally published this under the same on her blog Mountain Girl Writes on September 10, 2012. Reprinted with permission.(Rachel has another essay here on civil disobedience in WV at the Mountain Mobilization. I've got a short interview with her here. Other posts in this series Larry Gibson 1946-2012 are indexed here.

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In loving memory of Larry Gibson, 1946 – 2012

 I’ve been involved in the movement to stop mountaintop removal for over three years now, which is a relatively small period of time when I think about the many people who’ve been involved for much longer. Fighting big coal has come to define me to such an extent that it feels like a lifetime since I first heard Judy Bonds and Larry Gibson speak. Judy and Larry were two coalfield residents whose words were more than just genuine; they were passionate and empowering.

Larry Gibson was a spunky little man who talked big, and it was not difficult to believe every word he said. I always believed that he would fight for the mountains until he took his last breath. People like Larry don’t just stop fighting for something when the fight gets too hard. Larry’s fight was always hard. Throwing his lot in with the “tree huggers” and refusing to sell the last remnants of his home on Kayford Mountain to the coal company meant that Larry made a lot of enemies.

People shot at his house, vandalized his property, poisoned and shot his dogs and threatened his life. The police ignored Larry’s problems, claiming that Larry lived in “No Man’s Land” on Kayford Mountain and that there was nothing they could do to help him. Despite this, Larry was not deterred. He never claimed to be a saint or anything of the sort, just a man who owed his life to Kayford Mountain, but there must have been some part of him with divine patience. How many people can claim that all those things, or even of those things, wouldn’t scare them away from their home?

If anyone wonders how bad the harassment of Larry Gibson really was, well, let me tell you a little story. It’s about a nineteen year old girl who went with her family to spend the Fourth of July with Larry and a large group of mountaintop removal protestors on Kayford Mountain for Larry’s annual Fourth of July festival. That nineteen year old girl was me and I was brand new to the movement. I’d met Larry a couple of times before but didn’t know him well. He welcomed my family – my mother, my brothers, my grandparents, and me – with open arms, like he’d known us forever.

Not much for crowds, I retired to my tent early on to write. Larry had warned us all earlier that day that there could be some disturbance from locals who didn’t like what Larry stood for. While I was squirreled away in my tent, some of those locals showed up. I could hear raised voices from inside the tent and, afraid of getting involved in something potentially dangerous, I stayed where I was while our group was verbally assaulted by several locals. One of them was a large man who decided to express his disdain for us by eating several of the hotdogs we’d grilled while a female friend of his poured tomato juice all over our picnic area. They shouted vicious things at our group and at Larry, prompting my grandfather to place himself protectively in front of Larry. My grandfather told me later that he put himself in the line of fire hoping that one of them would hit him, so he’d have a real complaint to take to the police, since they wouldn’t listen to anything else.

When I emerged from my tent, the troublemakers had gone and we all tried to go about our celebration and pretend that nothing had happened. As Larry explained, it wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened, which was of little comfort to us when it began to rain. My mother, my brothers and I were huddled together in a tent that leaked, none of us getting much sleep while locals roared their cars and four-wheelers past our camp all night long and shouted expletives and threats at us. After that night, I never doubted any claim Larry made of violence against him and his property and family.

Larry lived on what little remained of Kayford Mountain, which was his family’s ancestral home. He placed his fifty acres in a land trust that prevents it from ever being strip-mined, though underground mining still takes place. That fifty acres is all that’s left of over 500 acres owned by Larry’s family, most of which has been taken and destroyed by a mining company by way of a broad form deed that sold the mineral rights to the property, signed with an “X” by one of Larry’s ancestors. Larry would take all of his visitors to a place called “Hell’s Gate,” a point where you could look out at the destruction of Kayford Mountain.

The first time Larry took my family to Hell’s Gate, I was shell-shocked. There are no words to describe the site. People tried to describe the horror of it to me before I went, but nothing that anyone said could have prepared me for the sight of a mountain that had been nearly leveled. They don’t call it mountaintop removal for nothing. Kayford’s mountaintop is gone. Even worse was when Larry pointed out a patch of green that resembled an island, raised above the rubble and waste. He explained that it was his family’s cemetery, which the company was not allowed to destroy, but was now incredibly difficult to reach. Larry’s ancestors are buried in that “protected” cemetery.

It made me sick to my stomach and I knew I had to find a way to join the fight. Every time I saw Larry, he smiled and hugged me and encouraged me to stay involved. He was very concerned about getting young people to join the movement, because he said that we were the ones who would have to carry on the fight after he was gone. It never really occurred to me that one day we wouldn’t have Larry to lead the charge. He was such a powerful personality that it made me believe Larry would always have my back in this fight.

Now I’m twenty-two and still fighting. A little over a year ago, one of my heroes, Judy Bonds, passed away from cancer. Her death had a huge impact on the movement. I had only just escaped the melancholy that settled on me on the anniversary of her passing. With one powerful person gone, I know the vast majority of people in the movement looked to Larry for inspiration and guidance. I don’t use the word “hero” lightly. Larry fit the word in every sense. If a person grew weary of the fight, they only needed to go to Larry to get that metaphorical fire lit under their ass. Larry didn’t just ask you to fight, he told you flat out that it was your responsibility to fight and to fight hard.

I was not expecting to come home Sunday evening to news of Larry’s passing. In fact, I had no reason to expect that he would leave us any time soon. At sixty-six years old, he was lively and loud, though I was not under the illusion that he was in prime health. My mother and I pulled into the driveway of our home after a trip to the grocery store and we were met by my stepfather, who broke the news to us. My mother broke down in tears. For me, the news was so out of the blue that I wasn’t sure how to react.

The first thing I did was rush to my computer to uncover the facts about the situation. I found out that Larry had indeed passed away. He’d had a heart attack while working on his beloved mountain. I suppose he would have wanted to die up there but I’m sure he wasn’t planning on it happening so soon. He still had work to do, the responsibility for which has now been thrust upon his family and friends.

Activist and photographer Paul Corbit Brown took a video of Larry a few days before his death, in which Larry spoke of his love for Kayford Mountain. Kayford was not quite heaven, he said, but up there, he was one step up – one step closer to heaven. That’s testament to how much he loved that place, considering that most of it was already gone. Larry must have remembered Kayford the way she used to be, wild and rich with life. I can’t say what happens after this life, if we continue to another life or return to the earth, but one way or another, I hope that Larry was reunited with Kayford.

There’s so much to say about him. Physically, he was a small person and had an unassuming appearance. If it wasn’t for the neon green shirt and hat that he wore everywhere, he would have been an easy person to overlook. It was the fighting passion inside him that made him such a memorable person. He wanted to fight for Kayford, for every mountain in Appalachia, and he poured his heart and soul into it. He made sure that no one ignored him, going out on the road to speak all around the country and spread the word of the threat of strip-mining in Appalachia.

People said he looked like a highlighter out in public, clearly visible in his trademark green, which he said he chose because it caught peoples’ attention. The shirt and hat, now owned by many of us in the movement, bear the information for Larry’s foundation, The Keepers of the Mountains. “Love ‘em or leave ‘em, just don’t destroy ‘em,” he said. He wanted to win the fight against big coal and see a stop put to mountaintop removal more than anything. It makes me hurt and angry to know that he won’t get to see the final chapter of the story. He won’t be there when mountaintop removal is finally abolished.

It will feel so strange to celebrate that victory without him or Judy Bonds to get up in front of us all and tell us that we did it; we won against all odds. That’s all the more reason to keep fighting. If I count Larry as a dear friend, which I do, I know that I can’t throw in the towel now. It’s time to step up and carry the torch onwards, to make sure that our voice is not lessened just because Larry’s not here to clear the way in highlighter green.

All that being said, I miss Larry and it hurts so much to know that I’ll never see him again. He’ll never give me another hug, or tell my mother what a pretty daughter she has. Larry was special to me and my family. We counted ourselves as his people, people from Appalachia who were tired of being quiet, and it is like losing a family member now that he is gone. I thought I would get to see him soon in DC and I was looking forward to it. I feel hollow knowing that he won’t be here to lead us anymore.

Larry’s passing only strengthens my resolve. I want the world to hear his story and know the true cost of coal. I want everyone to hear about the suffering of the Appalachian people and our beloved mountains. Larry’s home was destroyed. The forests he explored as a child were demolished, his mountain was leveled, and yet our government thinks that this is okay. Worse than that, this has happened to over five hundred mountains in Appalachia, and more all of the time.

In Larry Gibson’s honor, I refuse to back down and allow the greedy rich to have their way. As Larry would say, it’s my job and it’s your job to see this through. It doesn’t matter if you live here or you don’t, if you’re a transplant or a native, or if you live on the other side of the world. Everyone should care about this, and everyone should want to preserve and protect the Appalachian Mountains.

I know what Larry meant when he said that being on Kayford was “one step up.” There is something divine about these mountains, about the land I have loved since I was a small child, and I have felt that strong connection to it that Larry had. Imagine the most important thing to you in this world, the one thing that you keep in your soul, so deeply ingrained in your being that it defines you. Then you will understand what it is like for me and for Larry, to love this place. Maybe then you’ll want to join us and carry on Larry’s legacy, to move us ever closer to a world where these mountains are protected for future generations.

This is an invitation. If you’re not already involved, stop wondering whether or not this is your fight and jump into the fray. It is not an easy fight. People will try to hold you back every step of the way. They’ll call you a liar and many less pleasant names, they’ll try to label you as an outsider who has no right to speak up, but no matter where you live, you are not an outsider. Larry would have wanted you with us. Join us and help us keep the mountains.

Larry Gibson 1946-2012: Paul Corbit Brown Remembers

Photo by Paul Corbit Brown of him and Larry Gibson at the week-long June 2011 March on Blair Mountain, c. 2011. 

This is a guest post written by my friend photographer and activist Paul Corbit Brown, with the selection of the photos, some editing and arranging by me. The cliche is that a picture is worth a thousand words, and Paul Corbit's are worth many more.

• The first section explains his thoughts on the above picture he took of of the Larry and him, and memories it evokes. (I had how he had caught the image, thinking maybe he used a shutter delay, a cable release or some other piece of camera gear.)
• The second section tells about the day he got to spend with Larry on Thursday, September 6 at Larry's home on Kayford Mountain. 
• The next three sections intersperse Paul Corbit's email to Jeff Biggers (published in the latter's eulogy) with what Paul Corbit wrote about "In the days to come..."
• Next is a short video  Paul Corbit took of Larry September 6 (which I hope to be able to embed at a later date.) 
• The last four sections are pair photographs Paul Cobit took of Larry at his home on Kayford Mountain with Paul thoughts on each.  The first of these was taken in May, the others on September 6.

All words, photographs and the video are used by permission of Paul Corbit Brown. I first published this  September 10, 2012 at 2:15. Our conversation about the above photo took place September 12, 2012.  The most recent revision was on September 17, 2012 at 9:26 am.  Other posts in this series Larry Gibson 1946-2012 are indexed here.

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How I took the top picture and what it means

I just hold the camera at arm's length and press the shutter with my thumb. It's not the best photo, but I cherish it...This photo was taken at the March on Blair. When I do these kinds of photos, I usually just hold the camera straight out in front of me, but there were so many people there, I thought shooting from above would isolate the two of us. I remember thinking that as a photographer, I have pictures of everyone else and everyone else together, but I'm usually not in the pictures. I wanted to have a picture to remember being with Larry on this march because I felt like it was a really important event and his friendship has always meant so much to me.

Larry and I had a lifetime of conversations on Thursday

Somewhere in the middle of a very serious discussion, he suddenly stopped, punched me lightly in the arm to make sure I was listening, and he said, "Paul Corbit, you know what the real problem is? I'll tell you. I'm short and good looking' and you're just too damn tall. And there's really nothing we can do to fix it." Larry always knew how important humor is to friendship and to keeping someone's attention.

Looking at this photo of us together on the March for Blair will always remind me of him saying that even though the photo was made over a year ago.

To say... [Larry] had an enormous impact on all of our lives wouldn't be enough.

To say he was a hero wouldn't be enough. To say he changed our lives wouldn't be enough. To say has was deeply loved and will be missed wouldn't be enough. But let me tell you what was on his heart just days ago.

He stressed that this fight was never about him or his mountain alone. It was, and is, about all of us and our shared future. It is about the thousands of young people that he called his kids. It is about those not yet born.

It wasn't about Larry Gibson and a mountain. He wanted to be a voice for all people and the mountains and homes they love. He wanted to speak for Justice and to inspire those too frightened to speak. And even those who called Larry an enemy and wished to do him harm, he spoke of them, still, as "His People."

In the days to come...

It is only natural and appropriate that we will ask ourselves, “What would Larry want?” or “How can I best honor Larry?” There are a multitude of answers to these questions, but I believe one answer will always come to the top: We must Speak. Each of us must find our voice and we must Speak, Speak, Speak. We must rise up with a mighty voice and we must Speak until our truth has been heard. We must speak from the tops of our mountains and through the corridors of power. We must speak and never let up until our Truth has been made manifest and Justice has been firmly established in our homes, our communities, our air and our water. This is the greatest honor we can bestow upon Larry, Judy and all those that have come to illuminate Truth and shine a light upon our path.

 Rest in Peace, Larry

It was only appropriate that you should be on your mountain when you left this world. You can rest assured that we who you left behind will not rest until we finish the work you so passionately and courageously began.

Video: Larry Gibson, Almost Heaven

Here's the link on facebook until an open source link is available.

Now, I'm not in a big hurry to leave here, but I'm pretty close to heaven when I'm here.

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 Larry with "Dog"

I made this photo on May 26, 2012. I had spent the day working on Larry's solar panels. I remember asking him if I could do a photo of him before I left. "Sure," he answered, "What do you want to do?" I asked him if he minded doing one with him beside "Dog's" grave. He looked at me a bit questioningly, but went along with it. I only made a couple of images then we returned to his porch to say our farewells for the day. He was a bit quiet and I was worried I had made some horrible mistake in asking for this. At some point, his eyes filled with tears and he said, "Thanks for doing that. Nobody ever asked to take a picture of me with him since I buried him. I really miss that dog. We went through a lot together. He was a good friend." Thank you.

A man and an icon

Larry asked me to talk with him about his idea of going to the UMWA rally against Patriot Coal on the following Tuesday in Charleston, WV. It was a long conversation, but the essence of it was that Larry was well aware that he had become an icon with his green shirt and cap, and he was aware that this icon was often an inflammatory presence with folks in the coal industry. While Larry was always opposed to coal, not just MTR, he was NEVER opposed to coal miners.

Larry was truly a man of the people and he always wanted to speak for what was fair and just. A lot of folks could (or would) never understand this about him. He always believed the people of Appalachia deserved better than merely the choice between poverty or destroying Appalachia with the devastation wrought by the extractive industries. He felt that he should go to the rally but he would, for the first time, not show up in his green shirt. He said he had made a promise to himself that he would not, under any circumstances, talk about MTR or mining in general. He wanted to be there in support of the workers, people who he believed were his own (and he was theirs).

He felt Patriot Coal was preparing to cheat the miners and he was firmly convinced that if they succeed in stripping the miners of their health cards and pensions, a domino effect would ensue through other industries- I think he's right. And so the photo is significant because he was prepared to step out as Larry Gibson, a man FOR the people, rather than merely the anti-MTR icon he had become. He never wavered in his conviction that MTR and coal in general should be abolished, he simply didn't want the politics of that to interfere with his concern that the miners deserved to be treated fairly by the company that had profited so greatly from their lives and the health they sacrificed for their jobs.

Hell's Gate Reprise

This photo has been made so many times, by so many photographers and visitors that it's quite possible a penny for each photo made might be combined to actually buy Kayford Mountain. But nonetheless, it was a ritual, a meditation, for many of us when we visited. It's both fascinating and chilling to see the changes in the landscape behind him over the years. They will spray their hydro seed and paint it green to cover their greed, but that won't replace the mountain, nor will it replace the ecosystem that existed there before the mining began. A few kinds of grass and a few scrubby trees won't replace a real hardwood forest and the nearly 1,000 species of plants that existed on that mountain before it was destroyed. I once commented to him that they were pulling out the threads in the fabric of Life and I asked him how long it would be before they realized we are all wearing the "Emperor's New Clothes." He looked at me for a moment and answered, "Probably not until it's too late, but we have to keep trying."

Larry on top, with clouds

Seeing him here, if one doesn't know what is really in front of him, it's easy to imagine he's at the top of the mountain. It's beautiful and haunting because once you learn what's on the other side, you begin to look suspiciously at the presumed "top" of every other mountain. I wonder how Martin Luther King's speech would have been different if he had been to the top of this mountain and seen the other side...

These were the last photographs I made of Larry Gibson as he walked upon this earth.

I am certain there will be more [on this post]. Words usually come to me in the middle of the night and I have learned to roll over and grab something to jot them down, otherwise they evanesce with the morning light. In the meantime I hope these photographs will help us remember him, his life, his message, his friendship, his courage, his passion and everything we shared together.

I know we all wish we could have just one more walk on the mountain with him.

Larry Gibson 1946-2012: "I will not be satisfied to be called a victim."

This photo by Wendy Johnston (used by permission) shows Larry Gibson waiting to be taken to jail  in Anacostia, after sitting in at the White House in September 2010   By then, Judy Bonds was already too sick from cancer to attend the "thousand-hillbilly march” she'd envisioned.  Larry, Wendy and her family and I were  among 2,000 Appalachians and allies at Appalachia Rising, which preceded the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement, but garnered little national coverage beyond one piece in The Hill and an AP article. The latter distorted a serious protest into to some kind of colorful neo-hippy celebration, despite the fact that 125, including Larry, chose to be arrested.  There wasn't a good news account until Judy's obituary in the New York Times.

Bo Webb told The Guardian that I should be the one to write a commentary there on Appalachia Rising. I first used Wendy's picture for the draft on my blog. I titled it "Appalachia Should Abide," which was a variation of a line "Mountains should abide" a line from "Looking Out Over An Abyss in Boone County." The line was inspired by Psalm 125:1: "Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever."

I wrote that poem for Larry , when I met him through the West Virginia Writers' Mountaintop Removal Tour in October 2006. My fellow poet Chris Green--who heads Berea's Appalachian Studies program, but was at Marshall at the time-- had told me about the tour and OVEC kind made space for someone from Virginia. I also wrote a piece for LLRX.com "Strip Mining on Steroids" that was later part of the testimony at the United Nations.

 Larry is survived by his wife, Carol, his sons Cameron and Larry, Jr. and his daughter, Victoria. He was sixty-six years old. The funeral will be private and public memorial service will be announced later. Larry's family has requested that condolences be in the form of donations to Keeper of the Mountains Foundation, which Larry founded in 2004 to support mountain communities.  September 11, the Foundation let me know that you can sign the memory book here.

I first  published  this piece at 10:42 p.m. on September 9, 2012, shortly after finding out about Larry's his death.  I last revised it at 10:39 p.m. on September 11.  There will be subsequent revisions, most recent being on September 14 at  8:52 a.m.  in order to index and link here to other folk's pieces on Larry, which will include:

• some of Larry's speeches and interviews
• words and photos from his friend Paul Corbit Brown
• an excerpt from Trish Shapiro's book
• Katey Lauer's memory of the first time she visited Kayford Mountain.
• Dave Cooper of Lexington, KY, writes about his memories of Larry (They traveled for years with the Mountaintop Removal Roadshow.)
• Rachel Parsons writes about keeping Larry's legacy
• Danny Chiotos, Keeper of the Mountains' Operations Director, talks about Larry and the Foundation he created

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Larry Gibson lived thirty-five miles  southeast of the West Virginia capital of Charleston.  His  family had  looked up to the peaks that surrounded them since the late 1700s.  Over 300 of  his ancestors lay buried in the family grave yard.

 Like many Southern Appalachians, Larry left home to find work, returning when he retired, in his case from General Electric.The destruction started in 1986.  

I remember when they started mining here. It was a fine day: pretty sky, no clouds. All of a sudden I heard thunder in the distance. Couldn’t see no clouds, but we heard thunder. That was in spring of ’86.

By the fall of ’86, it was upon us – we could see the dynamite explosions and we were breathing in their dust.

Then by the spring of ’87, we could taste it in our mouths. It was foreign. We didn’t know what it was, or if it was legal to blow up a mountain. I mean, who does that? I just didn’t believe it, I couldn’t fathom it. But I was hearing it, and I was seeing it in the distance, and then finally I could throw a rock and hit it.

 When asked whether he had a picture of Kayford Mountain before mountaintop removal mining, Larry'd  say he had always thought, 

Why should you take a picture of a mountain?  It's going to be here forever.

By 1993, Larry put his land and the mineral rights to the coal below in trust as Stanley Heirs' Park, when he found out that his 53 acres land was worth over a million dollars an acre.  That same year Massey Energy offered Larry $140,000 for his land.  Larry didn't turn down Massey because of its bad offer, though.

But you see, for me, there's no amount of money that could buy this place, even if it was for sale. You know, you've heard of people that talk about their roots. Well, this is it, for me .   My family, the  last three hundred years came from this place...at least. How do you wipe that off? How do you make that okay?  Does money pay for that?  No. Money doesn't pay for everything.

 Massey didn't go away.  Instead it continued to pushed the trees and topsoil it regarded as "overburden" into the valleys, drilled holes and set charges of ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel,  blowing eventually blowing up the surrounding releasing coal and silica dust into the air and releasing toxic heavy metals such as mercury, copper, arsenic, lead and selenium into the streams which feeds the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Larry would tell folks, 

I will not be satisfied to be called a victim. I am a survivor.

You rarely see the mountaintop removal mining  from the interstate in West Virginia.  It's hidden over the ridge.   In October 2006, when a group of writers walked with Larry up his farm path to the gate that marks the end of the 53 acres he'd preserved,  we were staring out over an abyss.  Larry told us it was "the gate of Hell."  When we flew  over later, we could see just how much was gone. 

I lost  kin in the Holocaust.  Seeing Larry's homeplace reminded me of  visiting Ann Frank's annex in Amsterdam . If Stanley Heir's Park were the annex--one family's tragedy--what lay beyond was Dachau.  The vast destruction left me tearless, hollowed me, much as Big Coal had hollowed out the land which had once been Kayford Mountain.


Because Larry refused to sell out to Big Coal,  he'd been threatened and even shot at.  The  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported in 2006 that his first marriage ended "over his doggedness and the blasting and the threats to his life."

My wife left, but I could not leave this land. You pay a terrible price in this fight, but paying their price is worse.

Larry would go on to marry Carol, who  supported his efforts.  She was with him and his cousin working on the mountain this morning, according to his daughter, Victoria.  She told Ashley Craig (email) at the Daily Mail  that her father had been moving lumber from the porch and began to feel odd.  Sitting in his truck didn't help and his family called the rescue crew, which decided to fly him to Memorial Hospital in Kanawha City.  Talking about his death, Victoria said,

When my dad passed away you could still smell the mountain air on him...You could still see the dirt underneath his nails and the stains on his hands. He was working. He lived his life devoted to the mountain.

Because of Larry's devotion not just to Kayford, but to all the mountains which might be saved by its example, he lives on in all of us he inspired to fight the violence of Big Coal with non-violence.

May his memory be a blessing. May it give us strength to carry on.

"What We Do to the Land, We Do to the People"-- May 24 West Virginia Direct Actions Against MTR

Photo  shows protest at coal barge in the Kanawha River. 

Photo of  Kayford Mountain protest blocking the haul road for the Republic Energy mine.

Both are c. RAMPs and  Mountain Justice and used by permission. You can find  lots more photos at Flickr.  The following  entry was originally posted at 11:45 am and updated throughout the day.

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Mountain Justice, RAMPS disrupt coal transport at two locations in upper Kanawha Valley

On Thursday, May 24, As part of the   Mountain Justice Summer Action Camp taking place at the Appalachian South Folklife Center near Pipestem, WV, five members of Mountain Justice and

RAMPS boarded a coal barge to protest the destruction of mountains in West Virginia through Mountaintop removal, while other members and their fellow concerned activists blocked coal transport at approximately 10 a.m. .

Location one:  Chelyan protesters block coal barge shipment

Catherine-Ann MacDougal, 24, of Rock Creek, WV, joined by Ricki Draper, 21, of Greensboro, NC Nathan Joseph, 23, of New Orleans, LA, Rebecca Loeb, 24, of Maynard, MA and Jacob Mack-Boll, 20, Lancaster, PA, boarded a coal barge on the Kanawha River near Cheleyan, West Virginia.


Joseph, Loeb and MacDougal locked  themselves on the barge beside Kanawa River Terminal's Quincy Dock , while  Draper and Mack-Boll boarded and served as worker liaisons.  The group tried to raise a large banner that read “Coal leaves, cancer stays” before being stopped by company workers. They immobilized the barge for  three hours before police removed them at about  1:00 pm.

Police charged Joseph, Loeb and MacDougal with trespass after being asked to leave and obstruction, both misdemeanors.  They charged Draper and Mack-Boll with trespass after being  asked to leave. All five were arrested on a $10,000 bail with an option of $1,000 surety bond. Loeb and MacDougal intend to continue their protest  stay in jail until their court dates.  The other three were released at around 5:00 p.m. Draper stated,

I am incredibly proud to stand today with the century-long Appalachian resistance against the devastating effects of the coal industry. I have broken the law because the legal system is broken. I have broken the law because mountaintop removal is destroying our health, our mountains, and our futures. I have broken the law because the destruction of our landbase, which is our endowment, is legal.

Barge protesters come from near and far

Catherine Ann MacDougal of Rock Creek, had already engaged in the Bee Tree Hollow Tree Sit in Coal River Valley for thirty days during July and August 2011.

Rebecca  Loeb explained her reason for traveling from NC to take part in the protest: “...the viability and health of mountain communities are being destroyed by mountaintop removal—the coal and the profits are shipped away, leaving disease and destruction in their wake.”

Joseph, who traveled from New Orleans, LA, added, “The coal industry's continued disregard for the well-being of Appalachian communities is connected to the struggles of other North American extraction communities. Strip mining tar sands for low-quality oil, fracking for dirty gas and deep sea oil drilling are signs we are scraping the bottom of the barrel. The extraction, transport, processing and combustion of these fuels all. 

Location two:  Kayford Mountain protestors block coal haul road

At Kayford Mountain, a major mountaintop removal coal mining site, dozens obstructed access to the haul road at Republic Energy mine.  Kayford is home to Larry Gibson, founder of Keeper of the Mountains Foundation, who traces his family's life at Stanley Heirs Camp there back to the 1700s. 
According to his website, Larry and his family:

used to live on the lowest lying part of the mountain, and looked "up" to the mountain peaks that surrounded them. Since 1986, the slow motion destruction of Kayford Mountain has been continuous -- 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Eighteen years after the "mountain top removal" project began, Larry Gibson now occupies the highest point of land around; he is enveloped more than 7,500 acres of destruction of what was previously a forested mountain range.

 During a half hour, protesters stopped nine trucks: seven leaving the mine and two entering.  No arrests were made. Protesters report seeing officials with the EPA, West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Geologic Survey drive past.

Alaskan  joins the Kayford protest

Kirby Spangler of Palmer, AK, resists surface mining in south central Alaska.  He travelled to WV to express solidarity, saying

We're going to spend the afternoon helping out at Stanley Heirs Park, trying to make life a little easier for Larry and other folks who live near mountaintop removal and face intimidation [and observed] Some of the truck drivers gave friendly honks of their horns.

Federal and state officials make surprise visit to Kayford 

According to Spangler and  Gibson,  officials with the WV Department of Environmental Protection, federal Environmental Protection Agency, and United States Geological Survey made an unscheduled visit. They drove past the blocked haul road to the top of the mountain and observed  the mountaintop removal operation. Following the action's conclusion, Gibson, in an impromptu meeting with the visitors, told the EPA officials, "If the DEP did its job, you wouldn't need to be here,” describing his experience of living next to mountaintop removal, including the acts of violence and vandalism targeting him and his property.

Gibson says he mourns the mono-economy of coal mining forces many young people to leave the state in search of better opportunities elsewhere:  "Our biggest export in this state besides coal is our young people.”

Virginia  native Junior Walk supports the protests

While the coal industry would depict opposition to mountaintop removal as being the work of outsiders, many native West Virginians besides Gibson are outraged by the practice. Junior Walk, a native of southern West Virginia who now lives in Whitesville explains,

For the past 150 years the coal industry has been pillaging this place and taking everything, leaving nothing but death and destruction in their wake.[about today's actions, he adds,] I am personally very thankful to these young folks who ain't from around here necessarily who decided to put their freedom and bodies on the line to stop this vicious cycle, even if it is just for one day..."

Walk, one of Earth Island Institute's 2011 Brower Youth Award Winners was arrested that year while serving as direct support for the Bee Tree Hollow Tree Sit. He helped "get the tree sit up in the trees, haul the water and things, and the platform up."  About today's protest, he said, "I would love to see some of my native West Virginia brothers and sisters stand up and tell this industry they can't do this anymore.”

So does retired army nurse  Marylin Mullins

Marylin Mullins, a retired army nurse and native West Virginian who lives in Coolridge, WV is an organizer of Women United to End Mountaintop Removal.  She plans to shave her head with others in front of the State Capitol May 28 in mourning for the mountains.

Mullins is alarmed by health studies on the impacts of coal mining including the one in 2011 co-authored by Dr. Michael Hendryx, a researcher at West Virginia University, linked mountaintop removal mining  to increased community cancer risk, based on data from 773 adults in door-to-door interviews, which found self-reported cancer rates twice as in  mining versus the non-mining areas after controlling for age, sex, smoking, occupational history, and family cancer history.  She says,

Clean water and air is a human right. My electricity is not worth my human rights being violated–I’ll live with the lights off. I want my children and grandchildren to enjoy the beauty of West Virginia. We’re tired of the corporations lording over us, and no one is hearing our voices, so it’s time to take it further than talking.

Today's actions build on non-violent resistance to mountaintop removal in the region

Central Appalachia had a long history actions.  Earlier this month protesters chastised Swiss firm UBS at its branches for coal investments on May Day as part of Occupy Mountains! Then on May 3, activists from Greenpeace, RAMPS, Katuah Earth First!, Mountain Justice and Keepers of the Mountains Foundation blocked a coal train en route to the Marshall Steam Station, a Duke Energy coal-fired power plant.

Gabe Wisniewsk, Coal Campaign Director for Greenpeace supported today's action, issuing the following statement:

For mountain communities that are at risk of losing their homes, radical action may be the only way to stop the destructive practice of mountaintop removal threatening their health and survival. We stand behind these communities and are renewed and inspired by their commitment and today’s heroic actions.

The environmental and health risks of mountaintop removal are too serious to be ignored any longer. Companies like Republic Energy must stop this dangerous practice, and utilities like Duke Energy should stop buying mountaintop removal coal.”

Appalachia Rising will return to DC June 6

Appalachia Rising, the confederation which sparked 115 arrests in front of the White House in September 2010 will rally at the Upper Senate Park from 11 am to 11:45 am on June 6 to demand that Congress take action to

• end mountaintop removal coal mining and destructive coal technologies
• foster a sincere, public discussion about the urgent need for a sustainable economic transition for coal workers and mountain communities;  and
• protect our drinking water by passing the Clean Water Protection Act.

It's organizers also invite you to take action at home at a local rallies and events across Appalachia and across the United States or "take just a single minute to call-in to support our action in Washington DC."