New CD Celebrates Coalfield Resistance to Mountaintop Removal

On June 20, at the Mountain Aid concert, the non-profit organization Aurora Lights released its newest compilation CD, Still Moving Mountains: The Journey Home.

The CD and its accompanying multimedia website, JourneyUpCoalRiver.org, use music, interactive mapping and visuals to produce an organizing tool created by and for the local people.

The CD combines interviews with local residents impacted by mountaintop removal with a mixture of local and well-known artists: Kathy Mattea, Del McCoury, Blue Highway, Everett Lilly and the Lilly Mountaineers, Great American Taxi, and Andrew McKnight. Interviews from Mattea and Robert Kennedy, Jr. are also on the CD.

An interview with Ed Wiley, who marched to Washington, D.C., to raise money for a new school, and the song "Shumate Dam," specifically address the dangers the coal industry imposes upon the students at Marsh Fork Elementary.

All proceeds from the album will be used for grants and other educational and charitable purposes consistent with Aurora Lights mission to raise awareness of the impacts of mountaintop removal coal mining. The first CD, Moving Mountains, raised more than $6,000 for local grassroots work.

"The first CD was birthed with the idea that music could help inspire people to stand together through the hard times. What surprised me was how often the music and interviews were used in presentations and for outreach," Jen Osha says. "I realized that Still Moving Mountains had to go further to provide people with a way to move from inspiration to education to action. The website is that jumping off point."

On the website, people can use the map to pinpoint the setting of a song or issue, and find photographs, videos, interviews and stories to deepen their understanding of the issue, and even get involved themselves. The website was developed with financial support from the West Virginia Humanities Council.

"The multimedia website also serves as a classroom educational tool, providing lesson plans layered in six themes," says the websites designer, Charles Suggs. "Professors from both within West Virginia and out of state have already started developing unique curricula based upon the CD and website."

Aurora Lights will hold a release concert featuring musicians and residents from the CD on August 23, on the State Capital grounds in Charleston. See www.auroralights.org.