Gruley Bridge Tunnel Massacre
Bob A. Feldman
A 21st-century-written folk song/labor song about Union Carbide's failure to protect the lives of the Black workers it recruited to build a tunnel at Gruley Bridge, West Virginia, during the 1930's.
At Gruley Bridge, West Virginia
A tunnel it was built
To divert New River water
To power Union Carbide's plant
The tunnel cut four miles
Through a mountain of silica dust
And left behind a trail
Of hundreds of workers dead.
Union Carbide's construction contractor
Started digging in 1930
But there was so much silica dust
That the white miners quit in a hurry
So Black workers from outside the county
Were promised some steady work
And recruited to build the tunnel
At a wage of 25 cents.
The Black workers then died like flies
From inhaling the silica dust
But their deaths at Coal Valley Hospital
Were concealed by Union Carbide's brass
By 1936
Over 400 workers were dead
And silicosis killed fifteen hundred
More in the years ahead.