Elaine Purkey before she sings for the world premiere of Kelley Thompson’s film on WV labor great, William C. Blizzard, the son of Battle of Blair Mountain “general” Bill Blizzard and author of “When Miners March”

Elaine Purkey has been an activist singer/songwriter for more than 20 years. On June 21, Father’s Day, at the SFSU McKenna Auditorium in the Creative Arts Building, she  will join her fellow WV activist/singer Hazel Dickens and Mike Seeger,the brother of Pete Seeger, at the memorial service for one of the greatest promoters of labor culture, Archie Green.Elaine has been practicing a lot, and doing research including reading Green’s greatest book, “Only a Miner: Studies in Recorded Coal-Mining Songs.”West Virginia should be proud that two of the three singers at Mr. Green’s Memorial will be from our beloved state.

 Elaine Purkey with a copy of Archie Green’s landmark book on coal miners’ songs

I didn’t even know who Archie Green was until I visited the home page of Appalshop and read Mimi Pickering’s article about Mr. Green and all that he had done. Since then, I have come to respect a fellow MLS librarian who truly left the stacks to find the people who make libraries important. Reading about his amazing life, I have come to see that it is indeed possible to use one’s heart, mind and body to make a living and promote awareness of the gigantic gift working people have given everyone in America. I have tried to do the same thing here in West Virginia since September 1978, helping make many of WV’s greatest films including “Matewan” that came very close to being made in Virginia. Thanks to The Charleston Gazette Gazz section, Goldenseal magazine, Graffiti magazine, various film festivals, TV shows, radio shows, The South Charleston Museum and WV Labor History Assn, and a lot more, I have tried to tell the people of WV and the world about the great films about the reality of working for a living in the Mountain State. Recently, I wrote a 16,000 word essay on coal mining films I called “30 Years in the Mines.” I wish Mr. Green could have read it. I mailed a print copy to William C. Blizzard shortly before he passed away in December 2008.

Much has been written about Ms. Purkey. Perhaps the best article I have read is Paul Gartner’s Goldenseal cover story in it summer 2006 issue.

Hopefully someone will videotape the presentations given by Elaine, Hazel and Mike at the Memorial Service.

In any case. congrats to Elaine, our own Lincoln County minstrel who has been there on the front lines in important strikes, not only singing but fighting for the heroic coal miners like her husband Bethel and everyone else who works for a living. She sang twice for William C. Blizzard at the Cultural Center and performed for the WV Labor History Assn. at several events.

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