Black Days, Black Dust: The Memories of an African American Coal Miner.

By Robert Armstead. As told to S. L. Gardner. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002. Pp. xvi, 255. Paper, $15.00, ISBN 1-57233-176-3; cloth, $35.00, ISBN 1-57233-175-5.)

Robert Armstead, a third-generation African American coal miner, collaborated with writer S. L. Gardner to produce this readable and useful memoir of life and labor in the coal mines of northern West Virginia over several decades of the twentieth century. It is based on recollections that Armstead put to paper during retirement and Gardner's extensive interviews with Armstead, his fellow workers, and family members. Gardner added corroborating facts and figures and put the book into final form after Armstead's death in 1998.

Armstead's father, James Henry Armstead, started out as a coal miner in Alabama after World War I. In 1925 he moved with his family to Watson, near Fairmont, West Virginia, where "Bob" was born in 1927. In the first part of the book Armstead describes his father's work and recollects family life and the vicissitudes of growing up in the coal camps during the Great Depression. In the second part he focuses on his own career, which extended from 1947 to 1987.

Armstead's chief contribution is his evocation of the unique milieu of coal mining in clear, nontechnical descriptions. Communicating his personal fascination with the changes he witnessed, he traces the evolution of mining technology from the hand-loading era of his father through the coming of the first mechanical loaders during the Depression to the advent of continuous mining machines in the 1950s and longwall systems in the 1980s. One of the remarkable aspects of the story is Armstead's ability to adapt to the times, to learn the new technologies, and to overcome a racially based job hierarchy that made it difficult for black miners to retain their jobs after machines took over many tasks that had once been labor-intensive. Starting at Barnesville Shaft in 1947, Armstead survived layoffs, mine closings, and the whims of corporate decision making over the course of a career that included stints at a succession of mines in the Fairmont area, such as Everettville, Jordan, Grant Town, Loveridge, Four States, and Robinson Run. During his years in the industry, mining's labor force in West Virginia declined by 75 percent, but Armstead remained employed most of the time and eventually, against the odds, rose to the rank of foreman.

Armstead's memoir will fascinate anyone who has been involved with coal mining, but it will also appeal to scholars and general readers who have an interest in African American, Appalachian, or coal-mining history. A glossary of mining terminology and a brief list of suggested resources are appended to the book.

JERRY BRUCE THOMAS 

Shepherd College