Tennessee Senators
My first encounter with any key political figure came when I was 9 years old. My family was poor. My father was a coal miner and my mother worked in a shirt factory. The coalmines in eastern Tennessee where my father worked were under pressure from the state government to shut down. It was claimed that the mines were responsible for allowing sulfur into local drinking water. The underground water tables were tested and it was determined that the drinking water was not contaminated due to the mining but from other underground streams that did not tie into the coal mining operation. But it was not enough to sway the intentions of then Governor Al Gore.
So what is a poor community facing extinction due to the loss of jobs supposed to do? We went to the state capitol to protest. News cameras were quick to find our protesting coal miner mob. I'm sure we stood out from the entire well-to-do crowd in the uppity section of Nashville. After all, I was......
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