Editor’s note: Paula Jean Swearengin, a coal miner’s daughter, is challenging the coal industry’s candidate, Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, in the 2018 primary election in West Virginia. Among other things, her campaign opposes mountaintop removal, favors renewable energy, fights for clean air and water, backs Medicare for all, demands that miners get the pensions and healthcare they were promised, and favors investment in the people and infrastructure of West Virginia to create jobs and boost living standards. Below are excerpts from a recent conversation between the People’s Tribune and Paula Jean.
“I don’t think Charleston understands exactly what we’re going through in the coalfields, but I’ve seen so many new faces in the progressive movement that it brought me to tears. One, I think that coal miners, their eyes are opened because they went hungry and they’re still going hungry, and Donald Trump’s not fulfilling his promises. But Bernie Sanders won all 55 counties here in the primarie, and that’s very telling in itself. I think that opened some eyes.
“I’m glad to see more people speaking out. I have met so many people through this campaign that want to make things better. We’ve had this divide between people fighting for clean water and clean air, and people fighting for jobs, and I think they’re starting to realize there’s no reason for us to be divided. And that’s the reason I’m in this campaign. Whether I win it or not, on a national level, West Virginia and our troubles are known again. I really don’t like to be the limelighter, the poster child for that, but at the same time, other voices are being amplified.
“We don’t want to see our neighbors starve. We (activists) were talking about renewable energy years ago. It’s not like we were going to be a bunch of psychopaths and go after people’s jobs in coal and have nothing left here. The push for renewables should have started years ago. Joe Manchin put out an article I think in 2006 about diversifying the economy in Appalachia and he listed coal and gas first and he put renewables way on the end of his platform back then. Coal was declining when it was at its peak here. Renewables give people independence—you can put solar panels on your roof and not be tied to the grid. They don’t want people to do that.
“A united water front is needed in this country that could keep everybody’s issues in the limelight. Right now, West Virginia is in the limelight because of the Senate race, but Flint, Standing Rock, you’re not hearing anything about them now. These problems are everywhere.”
