Song for a Hard-Hit People : A Memoir of Antiracist Solidarity from a Coal Miner's Daughter

A story of struggle and perseverance from an Eastern Kentucky woman who answered Florence Reese''s timeless question, "Which side are you on?" by organizing her people with love and solidarity.

In Song for a Hard-Hit People, activist and organizer Beth Howard shares her stories of life in Appalachian Kentucky, where her family struggled with coal bosses, cops, and the cruel tragedies of working-class life. Her dad, sometimes violent and abusive, often compassionate and inspiring, was an itinerant worker in the region’s coal industry who inspired her unrepentant rebelliousness. The women in her life contended with ever-present male chauvinism, modeling a kind of feminism Beth didn’t yet have the language for.

These complex men and women shaped Beth’s sense of justice and solidarity, and taught her from an early age about the inextricable bonds working-class people share, despite our differences. She began to learn the powerful history of white Appalachians fighting alongside Black and Brown people, pushing back against billionaires who gain power by using racism to divide them. Today, Beth is a leading organizer in the fight for working-class antiracism, part of a long tradition of Appalachian organizers and movements who put solidarity into practice.

Beth’s story is particular but not uncommon. Too many of us face the same struggle for the basic necessities of life: somewhere decent to live, good food to eat, health care that doesn''t break the bank, jobs that don''t kill us. As she reminds us, we haven’t got a chance—unless we organize.

In the best of storytelling traditions, Beth''s prose is at once heart-breaking and inspiring, insightful and provocative, and filled to the brim with courageous humanity.