You look at that scoreboard, and that should burn in your heart. Do you understand me . We got some ground to make up. And once we make that ground up, well take off. Lets go. I took a walk through this beautiful world felt the cool rain on my shoulder found something good in this beautiful world i felt the rain getting colder sha, la, la, la, la, sha, la, la, la, la, la, sha, la, la, la, la, sha, la, la, la, la, la anthony new york city, where i live. And its easy to think, having lived here nearly all my life, that this is what america looks like, thinks like, that the things that are important to me are important to everybody. That every place else is out there. Unthinkable, maybe even unknowable. [ rain falling ] [ water rushing ] [ birds chirping ] anthony 600 miles away from midtown manhattan is Mcdowell County, West Virginia. Another america. In the mind of many of my fellow new yorkers the heart of god, guns, and trump country. The existential enemy. There is a place on gods creation a place of beauty beyond compare some people say its almost heaven look for me youll find me there alan johnson my daddy always told me, you know those tornados and hurricanes, they cant get to us. Were down in these mountains, down in the holler, and these mountains protect us. Here, if youre going to see the sky, you gotta look up. You can find me on the highest mountain you can find me in the black coal mines anthony to think about, much less empathize with somebody who comes from five generations of coal miners, in a place that looks like this, is to our enduring shame, unthinkable. Why cant these coal miners get retrained, maybe put up solar panels for a living . Why would these conservative, deeply religious people vote for a thricemarried billionaire new yorker . Well, i went to West Virginia, and you know what . Screw you. Here in the heart of every belief system ive ever mocked or fought against, i was welcomed with open arms by everyone. I found a place both heartbreaking and beautiful. A place that symbolizes, contains everything wrong, and everything wonderful and hopeful about america. Anthony the town of welch, known in its glory days as little new york. Josh welch is a very rural area. I mean, its an hour away from walmart. I mean, if that tells you anything. Its a real old, historic town, built in the 1800s. Anthony the American Dream in miniature. A place where generations of immigrants and dreamers could work and lift up their family. Alan the town of welch, when it was booming, the sidewalks were so crowded there would be traffic backed up like a mile. You couldnt find a place to park. We had three hospitals, had a taxi cab stand, had, like, three jewelry stores. It was just a wonderful place. Anthony the rest of the country took a lot of money out of these hills over the decades. Billions and billions of dollars. And when it became cheaper, or more convenient to pull the coal we needed to power our electrical grids, and to make our steel elsewhere, this is what was left behind. But this is not a poverty porn show. Do not pity the people here, who despite what you may think, are not unrealistic about a return to the glory days of coal and better times. Linda mckinney i drank coffee from the time i could walk. They put coffee in your bottle. Coffee or wine. [ laughter ] Anthony Linda mckinney is a true daughter of appalachia. She raised her children here. Lindas husband, bob mckinney, is a longtime mine safety inspector. Anthony now your family is originally from naples, is that right . Linda yes. Anthony naples area . Linda came here in 1923 trying to strike it rich in the coalmines. My mother died when i was five, so we went to live with my nonna, and the first day i was there she pulled me up to a cook stove. This is a dish that my nonna cooked during hunting season, with squirrels. These arent squirrels. This is chicken. Anthony dinner is a not untypical expression of Hard Scrabble appalachian practicality linda now i dont measure anything, so nothing has a recipe here. Anthony and neapolitan roots. Linda basil. Anthony home kitchen gardens, hunting, and gathering. Linda these my dad would call pisellis, its peas. Mm, making mama dance. [ laughter ] now, this is what im famous for in these parts. Have you ever had spaghetti pizza . No, you havent. Dont say you have. [ laughter ] the tomato sauce was made with joels tomatoes at the food bank. We harvested those yesterday and i made all the spaghetti sauce. Anthony nearby, joel runs an organic hydroponic farm that supplies the local school system. Sarah slone the people here are very good. Theyd give you the shirt off their back. Come together in times of tragedy or anything. Anthony christian values means something here. They are practiced on the street and in the home. Linda most of youve all got your potatoes, right . Anthony linda runs 5 loaves 2 fishes, a food bank that holds many of the lives here together during tough times. 16,000 people walk through these doors annually, in a county of 20,000. Bob gracious god, we just thank you for this day that were able to give food out again, this is not a regular giveout. Watch over us and protect us, help us to keep cool heads. Father, we pray over the food were about to eat, for the nourishment our body is blessed, in the name of christ, amen. Group amen. Linda this is our home. We love it here. Were very close to our church. Everybody knows everybody. Theyre all dying now, but were still hanging on, arent we, honey . Bob yeah. [ laughter ] anthony was there any sizable, italianamerican community here . Linda oh, yes, a lot of immigrants from Different Countries came here. Anthony still . How large . Linda no. Weve gone from what, 100,000 down to about 10,000. Bob down to about 10,00012,000. Joel in the county itself, as of the last census, so. Anthony those are some grim statistics. Linda yes. Anthony the coal that came out of this area built america, right . Linda yes. Bob Mcdowell County alone was called the billiondollar coal field. And the people that were in charge at the time didnt take advantage of all that money in case something did happen to the coal mine. Justin the cool thing is that West Virginia is developing a strong Entrepreneur Movement that a lot of people dont know about. Like with joey, he started a hydroponic growing. I mean, not blaming others for their problems, just trying to solve their own. A lot of people, its really doing a lot of good that we dont hear about. Linda this is our pumpkin pie cake. Have you ever had a pumpkin pie cake . Joel you probably wont like it, so ill take your spot. [ laughter ] bob we got spoiled. The last coal mines i worked at i made base salary was 94,000 a year. I also taught Vocational School and most of the kids i had said, well, i dont need this. Im going to go in the coal mines. Jina theres just an education piece there now that were trying to instill in some of the people that still have the mentality that coal is king. They dont leave off the hill from us until about 7 00 after practice, so they go through a lot. Anthony how many generations of coal in your family . Coach mike at least five. Anthony wow. Anthony coach Mike Anderson is second in command. Coal in anybody elses family . Yeah . Cole like trash man, thats a real common job in my family. Coach larry dont feel bad. Trash men make more money than teachers do, chavez. Anthony fred fat back minco, micah woogie mclaughlin, and cole chavo anderson are in many ways typical mount view players and students with the hopes and dreams of, well, any other high school students. Anthony homecoming. Coach larry it is. Anthony how big a deal is football in general, and this game, and what you guys do . Coach you know, a lot of these kids understand that there are not a lot of resources here. Before you can kind of feel the dreariness that kind of lingered around the community. But now, you know, with these boys winning, the work ethic theyre putting in, you can feel the support. You know, like, we did a few Community Outreach programs this summer. We went down to the park and they painted, and they feel it, they feel that sense of pride. Anthony how has this Football Program changed your life . Micah it gives me something to do to stay out of trouble. Coach mike some of these guys have changed 100 . They had no guidance, no discipline. They have outside forces that could be pulling them in a different direction. And they know how that life is going to go for them. And as a team in here relying on each other, their limits are out of this world. Anthony now in the past, you could get into high School Pretty sure that you were going to make big money working in coal. You dont have that kind of guarantee now. What do you see yourself doing in ten years . Fred journalism. Anthony journalism . Micah in ten years, i hope to be studying my phd and be a mechanical engineer. Anthony mechanical engineer . Micah yes, sir. Cole im definitely going to be a neuropsychologist. Anthony neuropsychologist . Cole yup. Anthony whats tougher, life or football . Group life, definitely. Micah theres no halftime in life. Theres no timeouts, theres no none of that. Fred that was a really good insight. [ laughter ] anthony love thy brother is one thing thats all well and good. But these guys want to win. They need to win. And everyone will be watching. But allstate actually helps you drive safely. With drivewise. It lets you know when you go too fast. And brake too hard. With feedback to help you drive safer. 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The traditions of this place, the things we value whether they be family, interpersonal communication, not having cellphone technology to distract us, those types of thingssert sort of but up against americas progress and its why weve always been looked at as being backwards. It was always too easy to come gawk at West Virginia. Lazy depictions of stereotypical West Virginiaens, hillbillies and hicks to be pitied and made objects of laughter and derision. Youre going to see dirty faced kids barefoot on a front porch shaking linden b. Johnsons hand. Theres a lot more to appalachia than that. The accompanying press portraying the year as an incapable and bewildered helpless mass missed the basic character, the pride and selfrelying core of the people here. That damage is lasting. When you come in and keep tell s us how poor, fat, how all these things are, i think weve all felt at some point shame. What should people know about this area that they dont know theyre not getting . Its just how much that people in this area have been exploited. Nick the land agents who came in and bought up all the mineral rights. The coal and Timber Companies that started extracting and taking everybodys labor rights. Man i cant fight a big coal company, they got too much money. Elaine politicians from dc that can make a quick day trip down here and get a good sound bite. Trump who is a miner in this group . Who is stand up. Youre all standing up anyway. Anthony the Drug Companies . Elaine nine million pills in kermit, West Virginia over two years. One pharmacy, nine million pills. Anthony in a town with 372 people. I dont think people understand just how genuine and wonderful the people are in these mountains. You cannot talk about West Virginia without talking about coal, and coal is a complex issue here. And coal is a complex issue here. Tied into the cell tissue and family pride of the people who have worked in the mines for generations. Robie that coal mine is something else, you know, you gotta take care of yourself in there. Patrick graham that fan is blowing about 200,000 cubic feet of air into the mine. Fresh air. Robie when you go into that mine you dont know when you gonna live to see outside again. Patrick today, were going about 5,000 feet. Anthony 5,000 feet deep . Patrick yeah, oh yeah. [ thumping ] its a little bumpy ride in places. Anthony pat graham is the foreman at the pay car mine in kimball. Patrick watch your head. Patrick yeah. The average wage of a miner is 60 greater than the average wage of all labors in the united states. Thats pretty phenomenal. Its easy to see why people in Mcdowell County want mining jobs. Anthony im staying in a town nearby, welch. Theres no bar. Miner most of us just go get the beer, and head back on top of the ridge and drink it. Anthony wow. Miner 2 in the name of the father, wed like to gather here to thank you for this opportunity to support our families. Please watch after us, keep us safe while were underground working. Amen. Group amen. Patrick what do you got . Man 3 bear meat and chicken. Anthony oh, damn. Patrick i may just put my sandwich back here if you got bear meat. Anthony thats delicious. Do you think the country as a whole, do you think they understand the coal business at all . What coal mining is about . Richard no. Anthony they dont understand at all. Patrick when you travel from new york to here, whether youre on a boat, plane, train, or in the sky or driving on a car, its because of a mine. Anthony mining causes damage to the environment. Of this, there is no doubt. But what cannot be grown, must be mined. There aint no cellphones, for instance, without mines somewhere. Anthony does anybody think its going to come back, big time, like 30 years ago . Miner my personal opinion . Every time a republican is in there it goes up. Anthony right. [ laughter ] this used to be a solidly democratic state. What do you think made trump attractive . A city slicker, three times married. Richard thats easy for me. Hilary shows up here and she openly said shes going to put a lot of coal miners out of work. Wrong answer. Anthony how many kids you got . Miner i got three. Patrick six. Anthony if you saw your kids had other options, would you recommend that they join the Family Business . Group no sir. Anthony you would say no. Richard id about guarantee that everybody here, their dad who worked in the coal mines, probably told their son, dont go into the coal mines. Miner 2 thats what i was told. And thats what i told mine. Anthony yeah. Richard youre going to tell them, no, dont do it. But you know, if they do, youre going to be proud. Im proud. From the stickers we put on our buckets, from the stickers we put on our hats, to my coffee mug there, passed down. If i dont mess that thing up, if my son goes into the mines, thats going to be his. Im going to walk through the river its so easy from afar that coals time here and come and gone. What other work . The states biggest employer is now walmart. Ive seen my share of trouble and ive held my weight in shame whatever your views, respect these people, what they do, and what theyve paid. Thats why ive got the power of 1 2 3 medicines with trelegy. The only fdaapproved 3in1 copd treatment. Trelegy. The power of 123. Trelegy 123 trelegy. With trelegy and the power of 1 2 3, im breathing better. Trelegy works 3 ways to. Open airways,. Keep them open. And reduce inflammation. For 24 hours of better breathing. Trelegy wont replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. Trelegy is not for asthma. Tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high Blood Pressure before taking it. Do not take trelegy more than prescribed. Trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. Call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling. 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