A Working Class Hero is Something to Be

Growing up, my friends and I would walk from my grandmother's house to the pool everyday in the summer. Along the way, we'd make up games about the strange shapes in our town's sidewalks. Diamond shapes marked with WPA and shapes like a can of sardines bearing the letters, CCC. As teenagers, we learned that the sidewalks and some buildings were constructed in an effort to put Americans back to work after the Great Depression.

Another one of those New Deal projects in our little town was the beautiful mural on the wall of the post office. I always was fascinated by how the artist compressed so much about our little corner of the world into one painting. He captured the lazy bend of the Ohio River where our town sits and the farming that once dominated the valley. He showed the nearby underground coal mines and even depicted the famous Spindletop oil well. Most of all, the artist showed people hard at work, doing the jobs that made the Mid-Ohio Valley prosper and grow.

For many years, I wondered who Alexander Clayton was and why his painting was in our post office. I later learned this artwork, created in 1939, was called St. Marys and the Industries of the Region, and was one of several created nationwide by the New Deal Art Project following the Great Depression. The project created jobs for the unemployed and made lasting cultural and infrastructure contributions to communities in need. The beautiful mural in our post office was the only one Alexander Clayton created in West Virginia.

Now, I wonder what the future holds for this incredible artwork that is part of history. Given the current anti-labor sentiment that is rampant in this country, I fear that its days are numbered. Because it illustrates the working class in America and shows labor as a key to prosperity, will it suffer the same fate as the labor history mural in Bangor, Maine? I should hope not.

First, it is a part of history. Whether you like FDR and his policies or not, the New Deal helped this nation to recover and get back on its feet after the Great Depression. These artworks are a link to this time in America, a Federal record so to speak. Living history that we can use to teach our children about the past.

Second, it is a work of art. Art, by its very nature, is subjective -- the artist's personal interpretation of an idea. Censoring artwork destroys freedom of thought and expression, all contrary to principles on which America was founded.

Finally, it is a tribute to labor and the working class. These are the people who built America and believed that hard work was the key to the American dream. With the politicians, lobbyists and corporate fat cats now revealing their true colors toward the working class, anything that shows the strength of labor and the labor movement in this country is in jeopardy.

Including one beautiful mural in a small town in West Virginia.

Somehow, I think West Virginia's politicians may be smart enough to know who butters their bread. At least, I hope so . . .