Interview with Hobert Maggard, June 26, 1987

Interview Summary

Hobert Maggard, a Roving Picket and community organizer in Perry County, Kentucky, talks extensively about the Roving Pickets and his role in organizing community action programs in Perry County. Maggard believes that the roving pickets' movement began long before 1959. He states that striking miners roamed throughout Appalachia during the 1940s and 1950s. Maggard highlights the tactics the Roving Pickets employed in closing mines throughout eastern Kentucky. Maggard says that at first the pickets would attempt to convince men to join the pickets by talking to them. If the men refused, rougher tactics were used including burning down tipples, blowing up a railroad bridge or loading dock, and even setting coal stockpiles on fire. "Then," says Maggard, "the bullheaded ones weren't so bullheaded anymore." He explains that women were also involved in the roving pickets' movement. He describes how his mother led five hundred women on the picket lines.

Maggard also describes his work with the Unemployed Fathers Program ("Happy Pappy"), a federal work program of the War on Poverty during the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Maggard spent nineteen months with the "Happy Pappy" Program during which time he was involved in a work stoppage to protest the federal government's termination of an employee after he completed a training course at an education center. Maggard describes the protest and states that it resulted in satisfactory jobs for the protestors. Maggard discusses his work as a community organizer.

Interview Keyword

Roving Pickets trip to Washington violence on picket line War On Poverty

Interview LC Subject

Appalachian Region Coal miners Coal mines and mining Coal mines and mining--Appalachian Region Coal mines and mining--Kentucky--History Maggard, Hobert Maggard, Hobert--Interviews

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