Bluegrass at the Bank - Boone, NC
3/5/08
On March 6, 2008, approximately two dozen Mountain Justice
activists visited a Bank of America in Boone North Carolina
to protest the bank’s funding of mountaintop removal coal mining
and coal-fired power plants. Today’s event was the third bluegrass-themed
protest in a week in which Action Jackson, an Appalachian string
band from East
Tennessee staged a traditional fiddle and banjo jam inside
a BoA branch while others rallied in opposition to Bank of America’s
investments in coal. While the demonstration was underway, three
account-holders already present in the bank chose to close their
accounts in
protest,
informing
the branch assistant manager that they would not allow their
hard-earned money to destroy Appalachian communities and ecosystems.
After a few minutes
police arrived on the scene and briefly detained one protestor
who was later released without arrest or citation.
Bank of America has invested billions of dollars in companies that
practice Mountaintop Removal, including Massey Energy, Arch Coal, Alpha
Natural Resources and others. Mountaintop Removal is a method of coal-mining
by which up to 1,000 vertical feet are blasted off of Appalachian mountains
with explosives and dumped into the adjacent valleys. The practice has
destroyed over 800 square miles of mountains and buried or polluted
over 1,200 miles of streams in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and
Tennessee. In addition to wreaking ecological havoc, the mining practice
also endangers coalfield communities with the occurrence of flashfloods
and mudslides off of the mines. These and other impacts of coal extraction
coupled with the accelerated climate-change caused by burning coal has
prompted a national campaign to pressure Bank of America to pull its
funding of the coal industry. Mountain Justice advocates for a swift
transition from coal to cleaner, safer energy sources such as wind and
solar and calls for green jobs in Appalachia and all other regions.
“So long as Bank of America continues to fund the destruction
of Appalachia, Appalachian string bands will have no choice but to bring
our music into these banks. For as long as Bank of America is funding
coal we’re going to keep coming back,” promised one of the
musicians.
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