Trouble! at Coal Creek

""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  Sauerbrei has incorporated newspaper images and historical documents into the text and effectively modeled a graphic style prevalent in the 1890s.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