Appalachian Volunteers - AV in West Virginia

AV in West Virginia

The AV sent staff to West Virginia in 1966 to prepare for the expanded program of summer volunteers. Unconstrained by the earlier history of one-room schoolhouse service projects in Kentucky, the West Virginia staff moved immediately into the contention over poor people’s representation on the county community action agencies. Their greatest success came in Raleigh County, where insurgent groups gained control of the CAA board and named Gibbs Kinderman executive director. In 1968 the AV staff helped form the Fair Elections Committee in Mingo County where voter fraud was rampant, and also supported the Political Action League in Raleigh, Mingo and Wyoming Counties, which ran a slate of reform candidates.

Governor Hulett C. Smith had requested that OEO cease funding the AV, and OEO was not persuaded to continue its program grants. Walls announced that support for AV activity in West Virginia would end on January 1, 1969. Kinderman and Tom Rhodenbaugh formed Designs for Rural Action, which supported the Black Lung Association and the Miners for Democracy movements which helped Arnold Miller become the reform president of the United Mine Workers of America following the murder of Joseph Yablonski. The AV also helped start the legal services group Appalachian Research and Defense Fund (Appalred). Milton Ogle moved to Charleston, West Virginia, and after a year’s sabbatical went to work for Appalred. Kinderman became director of the Mountaineer Family Health Plan in Raleigh County. Bill Schechter worked for the successful campaign of Jay Rockefeller, who ran for West Virginia secretary of state in 1968. Schechter and Bruce Boyens later worked for the UMWA in West Virginia. AV staff Tom Bethell, Tom Rhodenbaugh, and Dave Biesmeyer went to work for Arnold Miller’s reform team in the UMWA national office in Washington, DC.