Festival honors late labor activist, feminist folksinger Hazel Dickens

Princeton, West Virginia

Fans and family of the late labor activist and feminist folksinger / song writer Hazel Dickens gathered for a festival in the small town of Princeton, West Virginia, to honor her 100th birthday on June 1. Entitled “Fly Away Home Fest,” the festival’s first annual event attracted people of different nationalities, generations and genders.

All the musical performers were women and gender-oppressed, except for Hazel Dickens’ nephew, Buddy Lee Dickens. Annie Neeley, Carpenter Ants, Emmy of the Mountains and Hello June were among the musical acts.

Hazel Dickens was known for being a strong advocate of the working class and oppressed through the empowering lyrics of her songs. Political activists and other progressive forces also attended the festival.

Representatives of various organizations, such as the United Mine Workers union (UMWA), the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum and a prison abolitionist group known as West Virginia Fights Back tabled the event and passed out literature.

Also in attendance were members of Black By God — an organization that focuses on Black Liberation and freedom struggles in the region — as well as Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Communist Party USA, the Mountain Party and Workers World Party.

The donations and proceeds went towards the Black Lung Association (BLA), a non-profit group that helps raise awareness to support coal miners and their families who are affected by the debilitating lung disease known as coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP).

CWP is commonly referred to as “black lung,” because it is a buildup of coal dust particles in the lungs that affects a large portion of miners. Despite the facts surrounding its impact, coal industry bosses have spent decades pushing propaganda that denies the existence of CWP. Dickens wrote several songs addressing CWP, including one entitled “Black Lung.”

Workers World spoke with retired African American coal miner and BLA National President Gary Hairston, who stated: “Miners often feel neglected, especially when it comes to our health. Now the federal government is cutting our safety programs, and coal worker jobs are being eliminated. We need all the help we can get, and this event helps us as workers who are suffering.”

The inspiring life of Hazel Dickens

Hazel Dickens was born on June 1, 1925, in the coal mining town of Montcalm, West Virginia, located 20 minutes from where the “Fly Away Home” festival was held. She was born into a family of 11 siblings, and her father was a union coal miner. Most of her immediate family moved to Baltimore in the 1940s, including Dickens herself as a young adult. She remained in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., metropolitan area until she died at the age of 85 on April 22, 2011.

As a talented musician, Dickens played guitar, banjo and double bass. She was also recognized by her distinct, irreplaceable voice. Dickens mostly performed bluegrass, folk and old-time style music. She was closely associated with other left-wing folk musicians, including half-brothers Pete Seeger and Mike Seeger.

During the six decades of Dickens’ musical career, she released four solo albums and produced six records with fellow activist folk singer Alice Gerrard. As a groundbreaking duo who called themselves “Hazel and Alice,” Dickens and Gerrard were among the first women to record a bluegrass album, notably without involving men. Their music helped pave the way for women in bluegrass today.

Dickens and Gerrard were known for singing songs that called out bigotry, misogyny and social injustice. Among some of the titles of their songs are “Don’t Put Her Down, You Helped Put Her There,” “Custom Made Woman Blues” and “Working Girl Blues.”

One powerful song they recorded together raises awareness around the case of former political prisoner Joan Little, entitled “Beaufort County Jail.” Joan Little is a formerly incarcerated Black woman who courageously defended herself against a white, racist Beaufort County guard who attempted to rape her in 1974. Little was subsequently charged with murder, and a campaign quickly developed in her defense. Workers World Party and the Prisoner Solidarity Committee played a major role in pressuring the state of North Carolina to acquit Little, which they did in 1975. Workers World newspaper provided extensive coverage pertaining to the campaign to support Joan Little’s defense.

Hazel Dickens’ legacy lives on

Dickens played music for fun and refused to censor her music for the capitalist music industry. Nonetheless, Dickens was posthumously inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame alongside Gerrard in 2017. In addition to playing music, Dickens was also featured in a few films, including the popular documentary “Harlan County USA” about the Brookside Mine strike in Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1973-74. Dickens also appeared in the films “Matewan,” featuring the late James Earl Jones, and the 2000 film “Songcatcher.”

Dickens was known to not only perform at traditional venues like nightclubs and folk festivals but also at union halls and picket lines for striking workers. As “Fly Away Home Fest” event organizer and IWW activist Jonah Kone highlighted to a local media outlet, “One of the beautiful things about Hazel Dickens is that she could sing about the causes she was passionate about in a way that people understood.” (wvva.com, June 2)

Dickens made an impact on activists, trade unionists and musicians of all genres. Many other artists have performed songs written by Dickens, including Dolly Parton, Hot Rize and Kelsey Waldon. In fact, Waldon has recorded a couple of Dickens’ songs, including one that is often sung on picket lines entitled “They’ll Never Keep Us Down.” A popular stanza in that song goes: “We’ve been shot, we’ve been jailed, lord it’s a sin. Women and children stood right by the men. We’ve got a union contract that keeps the worker free. They’ll never shoot that union out of me.”

Neither the coal bosses and their scabs nor the capitalist music industry could keep Hazel Dickens down, and her legacy lives on!

For more information about the festival, go to tinyurl.com/5n893cn5.