Trouble! at Coal Creek - by Austin Sauerbrei

Book Synopsis

This gripping graphic novel tells the story of the 1891 Coal Creek War--one of the most significant yet overlooked labor and abolitionist uprisings in the history of the United States.

Told through the eyes of a young Welsh immigrant, Trouble! at Coal Creek is the epic story of a cross-racial struggle to abolish the system of convict-leasing in the mines. Austin Sauerbrei's evocative black-and-white illustrations and masterful storytelling show the personal battles and motivations that led thousands of miners to repeatedly take up arms against the powerful companies, their militias, and politicians.

Lured by coal companies' promises of good pay, stability, and opportunity, the narrator's father brought their family across the Atlantic Ocean for work in the mine. The job, however, was deadly, and life grew unbearable as the coal companies immiserated miners and their families. Meanwhile, slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, racist terror, and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan were still fresh memories for most. Coal companies relied increasingly on the forced labor of mostly Black prisoners who were loaned out from the state, an extremely profitable continuation of the old system of racist brutality. As Ida B. Wells noted at the time, "The Convict Lease System and Lynch Law are twin infamies which flourish hand in hand."

The miners of Coal Creek, however, set fire to the edifice of convict-leasing and inspired similar rebellions throughout the South. In this captivating graphic novel, Saurbrei brings their overlooked story to life for new generations of organizers.

Review Quotes

"There's an undeniable hunger to learn more of the true, complex, sometimes bloody, and sometimes beautiful stories of the people on this land who learned to work together for common power and dignity when powerful forces aligned to take away their very humanity. The reason the MAGA right is attacking history itself is because stories like these threaten the US mythology that they want us all to continue to believe in. Austin Sauerbrei proves that the graphic novel as both an entertaining teaching device and a strong storytelling tool are valuable for the struggles we have ahead of us." --Shaun Slifer, founding member of the JustSeeds Artist Cooperative, Creative Director of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum, and author of So Much to Be Angry About: Appalachian Movement Press and Radical DIY Publishing, 1969-1979

"Trouble! at Coal Creek captures the ways in which the convict lease system served as a threat, a Sword of Damocles, over the men working in the east Tennessee coal mines in the post-Civil War South.
This fictionalized account of the Coal Creek Wars highlights the range of tactics the free miners used to rid themselves of competition with convict laborers, the significant organizing role the union played, and the injustices and hardships faced by convict laborers, primarily young Black men. It also focuses attention on the complex alliances between the governor, the legislature, and the coal mining companies which sought to ensure the profitability of the mines for the mine owners and the profitability of the convict lease system for the state. Sauerbrei has incorporated newspaper images and historical documents into the text and effectively modeled a graphic style prevalent in the 1890s. This graphic novel will serve as a compelling entry point into the complex relationships between the South's coal mining industry and the convict lease system. " --Karin Shapiro, author of A New South Rebellion: The Battle against Convict Labor in the Tennessee Coalfields, 1871-1896

"With an incredible eye for detail, Trouble at Coal Creek! tells the epic and intimate story of the 1891 Coal Creek War in Tennessee from the perspective of the white coal miners and Black forced laborers who fought for themselves and each other. Historians have told this story before. Austin Sauerbrei brings it alive." --David Corriea, Set the Earth on Fire: The Great Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902 and the Birth of the Police