Education: Battle of the Books

Strife is familiar enough to West Virginia, a state with a history of chronic coal-mining wars. Early in September trouble erupted again. Pickets closed coal mines and truck terminals in the Charleston area and surrounding Kanawha County and in five neighboring counties, keeping 6,000 miners out of work. Beatings and shooting broke out on the picket lines. Construction on the Appalachian Power Co.'s massive new plant came to a halt. Protesters held mass meetings and disrupted public bus service in Charleston, and at the height of the furor a quarter of Kanawha County...

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