Workers and Students: An Introduction to Militant Movements in 20th Century Huntington, West Virginia

Abstract

WORKERS AND STUDENTS: AN INTRODUCTION TO MILITANT MOVEMENTS IN 20TH CENTURY HUNTINGTON, WV As a native of Huntington and a lifelong friend (and MA graduate) of Marshall, I would welcome the opportunity to introduce members of the ASA to the rich history of student and working-class activism at Marshall and in the city. This paper with accompanying slides will tell stories. The presentation will consist of a series of sketches----brief orientations, really--- on the Socialist movement in the city @1907-1918; on the community building by the labor movement in the city in the 1950s; on the student-based sit-ins, “share-ins,” and other direct civil rights actions of the 1960s; on the famous SDS recognition battle on the Marshall campus in 1968-1969, resulting in a red-baiting campaign led by a coalition of local ministers (which actually succeeded in generating support for SDS on the campus and in the broader religious community); on the work of the radical printing cooperative, the Appalachian Movement Press, in the early 1970s; on the organization of Cabell-Huntington Hospital workers into Local 1199, a radical antiwar, pro-civil rights, industrial union in the 1970s; and on the integration of anti-Apartheid, pro-labor, pro-veterans rights, antiwar, anti-Contra, free speech, and Nuclear Freeze campaigns by a small militant group of students and faculty in the 1980s and 1990s. I intend to compile for posting at the ASA website a bibliography of primary and secondary works for future researchers, whom I hope will get some ideas from this presentation