Truthout is a vital news source and a living history of political struggle. If you think our work is valuable, support us with a donation of any size.
Press play to listen to Junior Walk and Rose Aguilar on Vocalo:
Junior Walk grew up in the shadows of Coal River Mountain.
After graduating from high school, one of Junior's few job prospects was working as a security guard for a coal mine. The same coal mine that he believes caused pollution-related health problems for him and his neighbors.
Getting his paycheck from the mine made him feel, “like a miserable human being.”
Now he works for Coal River Mountain Watch, fighting against strip mining and mountain top removal, and he makes coal industry executives shake in their boots.
This story came to us from Rose Aguilar, a contributing writer for TruthOut.org and host of Your Call Radio on KALW 91.7 in San Francisco. Read Rose's piece on Junior for TruthOut here.
Click here, to listen to more audio productions from Truthout's partnership with Vocalo.
Produced by Lucy Hall with help from Sarah Lu. Music by Northbound.
Thanks to Sari Gelzer and Maya Schenwar at Truthout.
An urgent fundraising appeal: 7 Days to raise $44,000
Truthout is one of only a few platforms for justice-oriented, grassroots journalism. Today, we face an existential threat.
Due to Google’s launch of AI search, we’ve seen a drastic plunge in our site traffic and, as a result, our revenue. We lost 15 percent of our readership overnight. This was a readership we painstakingly built over decades, and it vanished because Google chose corporate greed over a healthy democracy.
We are fundraising right now to meet our basic operating expenses. If you can support Truthout with a one-time or monthly donation, you will make a significant impact on our work. Anything you can do makes a difference — we appreciate your support.