The Carterville Mine Riot was part of the turn-of-the-century Illinois coal wars in the United States. The national United Mine Workers of America coal strike of 1897 was officially settled for Illinois District 12 in January 1898, with the vast majority of operators accepting the union terms: thirty-six to forty cents per ton (depending on the county), an 8-hour day, and union recognition. However, several mine owners in Carterville, Virden, and Pana, refused or abrogated. They attempted to run with African-American strikebreakers from Alabama and Tennessee. At the same time, lynching and racial exclusion were increasingly practiced by local white mining communities. Racial segregation was enforced within and among UMWA-organized coal mines.[1][2][3][4][5]
^ Markwell, David. “A Turning Point: The Lasting Impact of the 1898 Virden Mine Riot.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society , vol. 99, no. 3/4, 2006, p 224 [1]
^Biggers, Jeff “Oct 12, 1898: Battle of Virden” paragraph 13. [2]
^Foner, Philip S. and Ronald L. Lewis, editors, "The Black Worker: A Documentary History from Colonial Times to the Present, Volume IV: The Black Worker During the Era of the American Federation of Labor and the Railroad Brotherhoods", Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1979. P.118, or Part III, paragraph 2 [3]
^Gutman, Herbert G, "Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America", Vintage Books, New York , 1976 p.184.[4]
^Lewis, Ronald L, “Black Coal Miners in America”, The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, 1987, p85.
