The office reeked of cigar smoke and sweat, thick with the tension of men who ruled Mingo County with an iron grip. The big boss slammed The ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä Gazette onto his desk, his face flushed with anger.
“Look what this man has written about us!†he barked, his voice rattling the walls. “He says we’re corrupt! That we’re destroying the poverty programs, buying votes on Election Day! Who is this foreigner? Where did he come from? What’s he doing in my county?â€
No one dared to speak. The newspaper headline lay in front of them, bold as a battle cry.
K.W. Lee wasn’t from Mingo. He wasn’t even from West Virginia. But he had come, with his notebook and pen, to tell the story no one else dared to tell. He listened to the voices long ignored, the coal miners, the struggling families, the warriors of poverty who had spent their lives fighting against a system rigged against them.
For the first time, there was hope.
Lee understood that the power in Mingo wasn’t just the crooked politicians, it was the coal companies behind them, the ones that had come from outside, stripped the land and left the people to starve. But the people were rising.
They formed the Fair Election Committee, determined to expose the fraud that had stolen their votes for generations. What they found was staggering, 160 dead people had voted in the last election. Thirty-thousand names were on the voter rolls in a county with only 39,000 residents. The numbers didn’t lie.
With courthouse records in hand, they fought, and they won. Thirteen-thousand names were erased from the rolls. The truth was out.
The death threats came swiftly. The county bosses wanted Lee silenced. But when he returned to Mingo, he wasn’t alone. A group of men from the committee met him at the county line, their faces firm, their hands steady. They would protect him.
And still, he wrote.
The next morning, The ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä Gazette carried the headline:
“Voter fraud in Mingo is finally exposed — 169 dead cast ballots in last election.â€
The whole country took notice. Twelve months later, the county boss and three of his officials were indicted on federal charges. The U.S. attorney general himself made the announcement in Washington, D.C.
Mingo had changed.
The day K.W. Lee left for California, the people wept. They knew he had done what he came to do.
And now, as the news of his death reaches these hills once more, we weep again. Not out of sadness, but out of gratitude. Because, for one brief, shining moment, a man with nothing but a pen stood against the most powerful forces in Mingo County. And he won.
Huey Perry lives near Huntington. He has degrees in political science from Berea College and Marshall University and has authored three books, including “The Legend of Gilbert Creek Road.â€
