August 26, 1908

Gov. Braxton Bragg Comer ordered state troopers to cut down mine strikers’ tent colonies for promoting racial equality among black and white miners. The strike pitted members of the interracial District 20 of the United Mine Workers labor union against their wealthy industrial employers in a struggle for improved wages and working conditions. Starting on July 8, 1908, the strike quickly encompassed more than half of Birmingham’s 20,000 miner labor force and threatened to shut down coal production. Despite their successes, the strike failed after mine owners resorted to promoting violence and armed state intervention, and mine operations soon returned to normal.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

In 1908, miners of the District 20 United Mine Workers union in Birmingham held a two-month labor strike against the coal companies. The failure of the strike established the groundwork for future labor relations in the state. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of Birmingham Public Library Archives)

Photograph of B.B. Comer, March 16, 1920. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.