Cord Byrd: “as a son of West Virginia's southern coalfields who grew up in a coal miner's home and married a coal miner's daughter…”

“as a son of West Virginia's southern coalfields who grew up in a coal miner's home and married a coal miner's daughter, I note that today is the 100th anniversary of the Monongah, WV, mine disaster, a particularly momentous and solemn observance for the coal miners of West Virginia. The Monongah, WV, mine disaster remains today the worst industrial accident in American history. At least 362 coal miners lost their lives in that explosion on that cold December day, December 6, 1907. The truth is, some of the miners inside Fairmont Coal Company's No. 6 and No. 8 mines were boys--mere children, in fact--whose names did not appear on the company's official ledgers. So we may never know exactly how many lives were lost inside that mine on that dark day. Sadly, many more miners across West Virginia and the Nation would perish, including another 78 miners in an explosion in that same West Virginia community a little over 60 years later, before Congress would respond with the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969. Coal miners are a different breed. Coal miners are bound together in ways perhaps not unlike the bonds that develop between soldiers or others whose occupations are inherently dangerous. Coal miners share a vocabulary foreign to most outsiders. Coal miners must place great trust in the persons next to them for their safety.…”