Which Side Are You On?

DESCRIPTION: The Union comes to town to protect the miners from boss J.H. Blair. The workers are told "In Harlan County, there are no neutrals there," and asked, "Which side are you on (x4)." They are reminded "Us poor folks haven't got a chance unless we organize."
AUTHOR: Words: Florence Reece (1900-1986) / Music: Traditional
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (recording, Almanac Singers) (reportedly composed 1931)
KEYWORDS: mining labor-movement nonballad boss
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Scott-TheBalladOfAmerica, pp. 342-343, "Which Side Are You On?" (1 text, 1 tune)
Seeger-AmericanFavoriteBallads, p. 94, "Which Side Are You On?" (1 text, 1 tune)
Greenway-AmericanFolksongsOfProtest, pp. 170-171, "Which Side Are You On?" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia1, pp. 263-264, "Which Side Are You On?" (1 text)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 134, "Which Side Are You On?" (1 text)
DT, WHCHSIDE*
Roud #15159
RECORDINGS:
Almanac Singers , "Which Side Are You On?" (on Almanac04, PeteSeeger1, PeteSeeger48) (on Selma)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "I Am a Union Woman" (tune)
SAME TUNE:
I Am a Union Woman (by Aunt Molly Jackson) (File: Arn174)
Which Side Are You On [II] (Recordings, Charles Neblett, Rutha Harris & Cordell Reagon, on SingFreeCD; SNCC Freedom Singers, on VoicesCiv)
NOTES [382 words]: The radical National Miners' Union (N.M.U.) attempted to organize miners in the 1930s, but were defeated by the mine owners after bitter and bloody conflicts. The United Mine Workers of America (U.M.W.), part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (C.I.O.) succeeded a few years later, again after terrible struggle. - PJS
Weir/Hanlan, pp. 421-422, offers a brief biography of author Florence Reece. She was born in Sharps Chapel, Tennessee, on April 12, 1900. Her father was a coal miner (who loaded a ton and a half of coal for thirty cents), and she grew up in a coal camp at Fort Ridge, Tennessee. Her father was killed in a slate fall when she was fourteen. At fifteen, she married Sam Reece, who had been mining since he was eleven. They moved to Kentucky because her mother opposed the marriage. They had ten children, many of whom also became miners.
They lived in Harlan, Kentucky at the time of the U.M.W. unionization attempt. Apparently the owners really did have agents looking for people who wanted to join the Union. Sam Reece was one of the U.M.W. organizers.
J. H. Blair was the Harlan County sheriff, and his troops beat and murdered Union leaders at the so-called "Battle of Evarts." One night, Blair and deputies broke into the Reece home looking for Sam; fortunately, he wasn't there, and though they waited for him, Florence was able to get word out that he should not come home.
A few days later, she wrote the words for this on "an old wall calendar"; she gave the tune as "Lay the Lily Low," which was described as an old Baptist hymn. It was made famous by the Almanac Singers.
Florence and Sam Reece remained activists all their lives, and lived together for 64 years. He died in 1978 of black lung disease; she died of a heart attack in Knoxville on August 3, 1986. Some of her works are collected in a book, Against the Current.
According to Sullivan, p. 37, the song's statement that, in Harlan County, "you either be a union man or a thug for J. H. Blair" is depressingly true. Blair was the Sheriff of Harlan, and at the time of the 1931 strike, "Of the 169 men Sheriff Blair deputized to help guard the owners' interests, sixty-four had been charged with felonies, and more than half of those had been convicted." Little wonder it was a bloody strike. - RBW
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