In Memory of Judy Bonds--Director of Coal River Mountain Watch

By Jeff Biggers
Author of Reckoning at Eagle Creek

January 4, 2011

Bonds, 58, had battled advanced stage cancer over the past several months. "One of Judy's last acts was to go on a speaking trip, even though she was not feeling well, shortly before her diagnosis," Haltom wrote. "I believe, as others do, that Judy's years in Marfork holler, where she remained in her ancestral home as long as she could, subjected her to Massey Energy's airborne toxic dust and led to the cancer that wasted no time in taking its toll. Judy will be missed by all in this movement, as an icon, a leader, an inspiration, and a friend."

As one of the great visionaries to emerge out of the coalfields, Julia "Judy" Bonds reminded the nation that her beloved Appalachians had been to the mountaintop--and in her passing last night, thousands of anti-mountaintop removal mining and New Power activists from around the country are reminding the Obama administration and the country's environmental justice movement of Bonds' powerful legacy and parting words to "don't let up, fight harder and finish off" the outlaw ranks of Big Coal and end the egregious crime of mountaintop removal.

Read more here

Bonds had a strong dislike (as most of the human race does) for Massey CEO Don Blankenship. 
She referred to him as Devil Dan. 
She was right. 
And she will be greatly missed.


*Rolling Stone article The Dark Lord of Coal Country about Blankenship from their December 2010 issue.

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