Hell's Not Far Off: Bruce Crawford and the Appalachian Left, West Virginia University Press
Josh Howard’s Hell’s Not Far Off: Bruce Crawford and the Appalachian Left arrives at a moment when Appalachia’s labor movement is wrestling with new forms of old struggles. As organizers, rank-and-file workers, union leaders, scholars, and labor journalists confront corporate consolidation, political division, and the collapse of local news infrastructure, Howard’s biography of Bruce Crawford, an early 20th-century labor journalist and organizer, serves as both recovery and reminder. It restores a forgotten figure to the narrative and reinforces a truth many of us already know: the most honest history of this region is written by the people willing to stand up to its power structures.
Recovering a Forgotten Radical
Howard approaches Crawford not as a myth but as a working-class intellectual who understood journalism as a tool for organizing. Between the 1920s and 1930s, Crawford’s Weekly, the independent newspaper he ran, became a lifeline in coal country—one of the rare places where miners and their families could see corporate abuse named plainly, racial intimidation challenged directly, and local elites held to account. Crawford didn’t posture as a neutral observer; he used his pen to build unity, uncover wrongdoing, and expose systems designed to divide working people.
For today’s labor movement, the book’s relevance is unmistakable. Crawford’s world of company-dominated towns, private intimidation forces, and hostile political actors may look different on the surface, but the core dynamics echo today’s struggles. Employers still weaponize fear. Outside money still shapes local power. Workers still face retaliation for organizing. And independent, working-class media remains a critical and endangered resource.
The strength of Howard’s book lies not only in the events he recounts, but in the framework he builds around them. Crawford’s life becomes a lens through which we see the longer arc of Appalachian activism: the push for multiracial worker solidarity, the fight against authoritarian company control, the recognition that environmental harm and economic exploitation are intertwined, and the role of independent media in defending democracy. Each of these themes runs through Appalachia’s past and continues shaping its present.
Bruce Crawford, circa October 1920.
The Struggles Linking Crawford’s Era to Our Own
As Howard shows, Crawford’s confrontation with the Ku Klux Klan is one of the earliest and clearest examples of his commitment to multiracial solidarity. Crawford recognized racial violence not just as a moral failing, but as a strategic weapon used to shatter labor unity. His anti-Klan coverage in Crawford’s Weekly called for solidarity that transcended racial barriers, challenging both company propaganda and the prevailing social order. For today’s labor organizers trying to build multiracial coalitions in rural areas, these moments feel strikingly familiar.
Howard’s treatment of environmental exploitation also connects past and present. Crawford wrote about land degradation long before “environmental justice” became a formal framework. He saw how strip mining and unrestrained extraction threatened public health, community stability, and long-term prosperity. Howard’s account makes clear that Crawford understood something many still overlook: the fight for safe jobs and the fight for a livable land are the same fight.
Crawford understood that controlling the narrative was as important as winning the contract. Hell’s Not Far Off makes clear that he saw journalism as a frontline position—one where truth telling was itself a form of resistance. That lesson resonates deeply in a region where news deserts have widened and corporate messaging often fills the void. Howard’s portrayal of Crawford underscores the need for voices willing to speak plainly about exploitation, corruption, and the forces aligned against working people.
Community, Solidarity, and Appalachian Radicalism
Howard also draws a subtle but important connection between community resilience and political courage. Crawford did not operate in a vacuum. He was shaped by—and helped shape—a network of neighbors, fellow radicals, labor activists, and everyday working people who believed that standing up to power was not only possible but necessary. Today, when cynicism and political fatigue run deep, that reminder matters.
If the book has a single unifying argument, it is that Appalachian radicalism is neither anomaly nor myth. It is heritage. Crawford’s work, rooted in the early and mid-20th century, reflects a tradition of defiance that predates him and continues beyond him. Howard’s careful research highlights this continuity and places Crawford among those who refused to accept exploitation as Appalachia’s destiny.
A Nuanced Portrayal, Not a Myth
Still, Hell’s Not Far Off is not a simple rallying cry. It’s a nuanced account of a complicated life, told with respect for historical accuracy and for the messy reality of activism. Howard’s prose is accessible without sacrificing rigor making the book useful to students of labor history as well as organizers looking for lessons they can apply today.
But this is not a book that leans on nostalgia. Howard is careful to avoid the trap of treating Crawford as a saint or a symbol without flaws. The biography acknowledges tensions in Crawford’s later political views and the contradictions that emerged as he aged. This honesty gives the book a grounded quality—one that respects the complexity of its subject. Crawford’s evolution is presented not as failure but as a reminder that movements, like people, shift with time and circumstance.
The structural challenge Howard faces—limited surviving personal records—could have weakened the story in lesser hands. Instead, he approaches the gaps with integrity. Rather than inventing motivations or dramatizing undocumented episodes, he works with the evidence available, relying on archived newspapers, government reports, and oral histories to piece together a life shaped by conflict and conviction. The restraint is refreshing. It adds credibility to the narrative and respects the reader.
Crawford's Weekly, front page, issue of May 7, 1927.
Lessons for Today’s Labor Movement
For union leaders and rank-and-file members, the book provides both reflection and motivation. Crawford’s commitment to a free press, his insistence on solidarity across race and class, and his willingness to challenge entrenched interests speak directly to the challenges facing workers now. His story underscores how much labor movements depend on people willing to stand up when it is inconvenient, unsafe, or unpopular.
For labor journalists, the book is an affirmation of the craft. Crawford’s reporting shows what journalism rooted in working-class experience can accomplish when it refuses to bend to pressure. His legacy makes clear that the press is not just a chronicler of events but an active participant in shaping power. Anyone who has filed a difficult labor story, pushed back against a corporate press release, or tried to elevate worker voices will recognize something of themselves in Crawford’s approach.
For academics and researchers, Howard offers a model of how to reconstruct overlooked lives without sliding into romanticism or overreach. His work demonstrates the value of local archives, community memory, and careful interpretation of fragmented records. At the same time, he shows how individual biographies can illuminate broader social structures and political movements.
Ultimately, what makes Hell’s Not Far Off so valuable for today’s labor movement is not simply the story of Bruce Crawford but the story of the world he inhabited—and the forces he fought against. Howard captures a region in the midst of upheaval, caught between corporate power and grassroots resistance, shaped by migration, industrial dependence, racial tension, and the constant push for dignity. Those pressures remain, even if the details have changed.
Crawford’s life reminds us that progress in Appalachia has always come from below—from miners risking their livelihoods, from writers willing to name names, from communities that refused to be divided, from workers who believed in something better. Howard’s biography honors that tradition and asks us to consider what it might look like today.
Hell’s Not Far Off is not just a historical recovery project. It is a contribution to ongoing conversations about power, voice, and the meaning of solidarity in a region too often misunderstood or written off. For anyone fighting for workers in Appalachia—and for anyone who believes that history is a tool for present struggle—this book is essential reading.
Hell’s Not Far Off: Bruce Crawford and the Appalachian Left is available through West Virginia University Press.
