Be part of the growing movement demanding justice for Appalachia!
Learn how...
posted April 18, 2013
 Click the poster image to load the full-size version. Download the quarter-sheets here. Join Mountain Justice this May 19th - 27th for our 9th Mountain Justice Summer Action Training Camp, near Damascus, VA. Mountain Justice has grown from a fast burning brush fire that helped push Mountaintop Removal to national awareness into a critical support network at the base of a growing, national anti-extractive industry movement for social and environmental justice. This year, it's time to fan the flames of resistance to dirty energy, and put an end to MTR once and for all, while continuing to support bottom up economic transition for a brighter Appalachia. Will you join us as we build pressure and momentum to stop strip mining and other destructive extractive industries in Appalachia!
Mountain Justice Summer Camp is a place to learn skills, expand on the ones you already have, strengthen connections in networked social movements for Justice, meet new allies and take action to stop the destruction of Appalachia.
posted December 17, 2012
Starting Jan. 7 in St. Louis, MO.
Organized by Radical Action for Mountain Peoples' Survival (RAMPS) and Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) and members of the Black Mesa/Big Mountain Communities. Not able to come? How about supporting the camp through a donation! As we are having this camp in St.Louis, folks from both Black Mesa and West Virginia will have travel expenses. Please donate to help send impacted community members to the Headquarters of the companies who are destroying their health, water and way of life!
This MORE-RAMPS-BMIS collaboration is yet another part of the growing national uprising against economic and resource extraction. St. Louis is corporate headquarters to five coal corporations including Peabody, Arch and Patriot, as well as industrial agri-giant Monsanto. Participants will learn new skills and use them to engage in the current campaign against these corporations through direct action and community organizing. We can't wait to have you join us, learn new skills, and build the movement! Apply here today, space is limited! The camp will feature a 2-week (Jan 7-20) and 3-week (Jan 7-27) option. There will be two featured tracks: direct action and community organizing, with significant overlap and emphasis put on how these fundamental aspects of resistance fit together. Both tracks will include multiple actions targeting extractive industries and provide a solid set of skills that can be used in any campaign. Both tracks are a full time commitment and will include intensive training and hands on experience. Participating in this camp is a full-time commitment for either 2 or 3 weeks. We expect individuals to come wanting to work hard and stay the entire time. There will be a sliding-scale fee to cover housing and food, but we will not turn anyone away for lack of funds. All must be comfortable in a communal living environment of 40+ people. We will not tolerate harassment of any kind. There is limited space so apply early! Here's a rideshare board!
More info at http://rampscampaign.org/winter-action-camp/.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact more-ramps@rampscampaign.org.
posted November 27, 2012
Come to the beautiful mountains of West Virginia for your Spring Break!
Learn about and take action against the destructive effects of the dirty life-cycles of coal and natural gas!
Stand in solidarity with the communities in Virginia, West Virginia and southwest Pennsylvania facing the ongoing destruction of coal mining and hydraulic fracturing!
See mountaintop removal coal mining and hydraulic fracturing natural gas extraction up close!
Take direct action against the dirty coal industry!
This March, Mountain Justice Spring Break (MJSB) will bring together coalfield residents, college students, environmentalists and concerned citizens who are interested in learning more about mountaintop removal coal mining and hydro fracking.
March 2-10, MJSB will be in the town of Appalachia, Virginia, in an area that has been heavily impacted by mountaintop removal mining.
March 10-17, 2013 MJSB will be in central West Virginia close to fracking sites.
We will spend a week cultivating the skills and visions needed to build a sustainable energy future in Appalachia. Through education, community service, speakers, hiking, music, poetry, direct action and more, you will learn from and stand with Appalachian communities in the struggle to maintain our land and culture. Mountain Justice Spring Break will also offer a variety of community service projects.
Mountain Justice Spring Break in Virginia will be held at the Community Center in the historic mining town of Appalachia. Nearby Black Mountain is being blasted right now by coal companies and you will see the effects on the forests, water, land and people. Coal trains rumble through this small community, which was once a thriving mining town.
MJSB in West Virginia will be held at a lodge in a county park surrounded by wooded hills and a pretty West Virginia mountain creek, and lots of fracking for natural gas. The Doddridge County Park is easy to find and convenient to Interstates 77 and 79 and US 50.
For more information or to register for Mountain Justice Spring Break in Virginia, go here.
For more information about MJSB in West Virginia, go here.
Come to Mountain Justice Spring Break and support grassroots, community led resistance to environmental injustice!
More recent events...
“Voices
for Appalachia”
Written and Narrated by Hundreds
An Appalachia Portrait-Story Project
 In early March of 2008, The Portrait-Story Project came for the first time to the Southern Highlands of
North America. The results, now available for posterity have come to be known as "Voices for Appalachia - A Portrait-Story Project - Written and Narrated
by Hundreds." (voicesforappalachia.org)
These portraits indicate every community that The Portrait-Story Project bottom-liners had the privilege of co-generating content with during their nearly
two years of travels. Dozens of households embodied this "art-media-social phenomenon" by inviting these creatives amongst themselves, kin, neighbors and associates,
supplying them with bed, board and morale for their volunteer service and then asserting their narratives upon the original drawing of themselves. As awareness of The
Portrait-Story Project spread throughout Appalachia, it tended to keep manifesting, provided specific request or an explicit desire to participate, which happened by
word of mouth or e-mail, and hospitality upon arrival.
 On these Appalachian Portrait-Stories we have a panorama of expressions: snippets of everyday life, celebration of the land and culture and struggles for
empowerment or at least survival - as handwritten by those living it. In a few cases where an otherwise able participant stated their illiteracy, a relative by
blood or marital commitment volunteered to write their words for them and annotated so.
We are very proud to be able to present this body of over 500 Appalachian Portrait-Stories originals. If you have adequate interior wall space within
Appalachia to exhibit the bulk of this original art and handwriting at approximately eye level, and desire this precious, unique collection for your public
event, then contact United Mountain Defense; umdvolunteerhouse [at] yahoo.com or 865-689-2778.
 There
is a manmade ecological disaster of geologic proportions occurring
in the rolling mountains of the southern Appalachians; its
called mountain range -- or Mountain Top Removal (MTR) mining.
It is the ultimate in theft of a people's heritage -- the
destruction of watersheds -- and the annihilation of one of
the most diverse places on earth.
Mission Statement
Mountain Justice seeks to add to the growing
anti-MTR citizens movement. Specifically Mountain Justice
demands an abolition of MTR, steep slope strip mining and
all other forms of surface
mining for coal. We work to protect the cultural and natural
heritage of the Appalachia coal fields. We work to contribute
with grassroots organizing, public education, nonviolent
civil disobedience and other forms of citizen action.
Historically coal companies have engaged in violence and
property destruction when faced with citizen opposition to
their activities. Mountain Justice is committed to nonviolence
and will
not be engaged in property destruction.
We work together to create diverse and sustainable economies in
Appalachian regions traditionally dominated by the coal industry by
supporting businesses, jobs and ways of living that are not environmentally
or culturally destructive and are nourishing to the social and biological fabric of healthy communities.
Though our work is focused in Appalachia, we oppose dirty energy and environmental injustice everywhere and we support clean energy and just economic transition for all. Seeking to eradicate, rather than simply shift, the burden of environmental injustice, MJ works to build solidarity and mutually-supportive relationships with communities where extraction and energy generation take place beyond our region. As coal becomes more politically and commercially volatile, industrial and political power-brokers are attempting to position natural gas, often sourced by hydraulic fracturing, nuclear energy, tar sands, biomass incineration, and other forms of resource extraction as clean and just alternatives.
Mountain Justice rejects this fallacy outright and supports those who resist these dirty, dangerous energy sources and also those who are working to implement truly clean energy solutions. We also recognize the native peoples who are the original inhabitants of this land. Accordingly, we seek to support the struggles of indigenous communities who are facing injustice daily at the hands of extractive industries.
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