Rebecca Simpson, from Cranks Creek in Harlan County, Kentucky, whose community was severely damaged in the late 1970s by a series of floods related to strip-mining abuses, describes her efforts to get damage payments for the people in her area and her successful fight to have reclamation work begun on the mountains around Cranks Creek.
"My education was just like a big black spot in my life. I couldn't go beyond that, I thought. I thought, probably if you try to do things like I've done, you'd need, you know, like a college degree. But if you ain't got it you have to go on without it. So I found out you don't have to be educated to do what you have to do."
Where is she now?
Rebecca Simpson is still helping to keep the Cranks Creek Survival Center going in the midst of massive renewed devastation from mountaintop removal and strip mining in Appalachia.
Rebecca Simpson is still helping to keep the Cranks Creek Survival Center going in the midst of massive renewed devastation from mountaintop removal and strip mining in Appalachia.
