- Joe Kenehan: You think this man is the enemy? Huh? This is a worker! Any union keeps this man out ain't a union, it's a goddam club! They got you fightin' white against colored, native against foreign, hollow against hollow, when you know there ain't but two sides in this world - them that work and them that don't. You work, they don't. That's all you get to know about the enemy.
- [about the owner of the Baldwin-Felts agency:]
- Sid Hatfield: I've met Mr. Felts. I wouldn't pee on him if his heart was on fire.
- Few Clothes: Now you watch your mouth, peckerwood. I've been called nigger, and I can't help that's the way white folks is, but I ain't never been called no scab!
- Joe Kenehan: Fellas, we're in a hole full of coal gas here. The tiniest spark at the wrong time is going to be the end of us. So we got to pick away at this situation, slow and careful. We got to organize and build support. We got to work together. Together! Till they can't get their coal out of the ground without us cause we're a union! Cause we're the workers damn it and we take care of each other!
- Sid Hatfield: I take care of my people. You bring 'em trouble, and you're a dead man. Sleep tight, Kenehan.
- Danny Radnor: [Narrating] It were 19 and 20 in the southwest fields and things was tough. The miners was trying to bring the union to West Virginia and the coal operators and their gun thugs was set on keeping them out.
- Danny Radnor: 'Round here, there's the Missionary folks. They's the hardshell Baptists. Then there's the Freewill folks, which is your softshell Baptists. Right now, I preach for both.
- Danny Radnor: [Narrating] All we got is our misery, Joe Kenehan used to say, and the least we could do is share it.
- Elma Radnor: I was putting up blackberries when Trammel Blankenship came shoutin' up the holler that the Number 5 had blown. I remember I took the pot off the stovetop and washed my hands before I went down. It took two days to dig through. And then when they brung 'em up, you couldn't tell which was which. They found blood on the walls from fellas trying to claw their way out. Mrs. Elkins, Mrs. Mounts, Bridey Mae, me... we all lost our men in that fire. Danny were seven then. Now he's back in that same hole.
- Sephus Purcell: [Opening lines of film]
- [Coughing]
- Sephus Purcell: Damn! Shootin' coal! Shootin' coal!
- Hardshell Preacher: The Prince of Darkness is upon the land. Now in the Bible his name is Beezlebub, Lord of the Flies. Right now on Earth today his name is Bolshevist! Socialist! Communist! Union man! Lord of untruth, sower of evil seed, enemy of all that is good and pure and this creature walks among us. What are we going to do about it?
- Joe Kenehan: Union men, my ass. You want to be treated like men? You want to be treated fair? Well, you ain't men to that coal company. You're equipment, like a shovel, a gondola car, or a hunk of wood brace. They'll use you till you wear out or you break down, or you're buried under a slate fall, and then they'll get a new one. And they don't care what color it is or where it comes from. It doesn't matter how much coal you can load or how long your family has lived on this land. If you stand alone, you're just so much shit to those people.
- Danny Radnor: Them scabs done it, up the line a mile. They was all colored this time. They bust his nose!
- Joe Kenehan: You say you got guns. Well, I know that you all are brave men, and I know you could shoot it out with the company if you had to. But the coal company don't want this union, the state government don't want it, the federal government don't want it. And they're all of them just waiting for an excuse to come down and crush us to nothing.
- Elma Radnor: He said he got his licks in. Seems to be all the men around here care about. Wives and kids are starving, so long as they get their licks in.
- Bill Hickey: Was your husband a union man while he was living?
- Bridey Mae: No. He said it wouldn't never take hold down here.
- Bill Hickey: He sounds like a smart fella. I think that you are real pretty. You know that, Bridey Mae?
- Bridey Mae: Thank you.
- Bill Hickey: Don't you think she's pretty, Griggsy? You are the best-looking mountain trash I've seen in a long while. We'll see you around.
- Elma Radnor: I don't want you using Danny on no crazy union business.
- Joe Kenehan: A man has to stand up for what he believes in.
- Elma Radnor: Danny ain't no man.
- Bill Hickey: Look, we're going to be here a while, little lady. You can have it the easy way or the hard way.
- Few Clothes: People hear about black folks shooting white folks, no matter what it's for, there's going to be hell to pay.
- Bill Hickey: I figure that little show you were putting on out there the other day was just for bargaining power. Or are you going to be stupid too?
- Sid Hatfield: Either of you shit hogs lift a finger in town limits, I'll put you away.
- Tom Griggs: Damn hillbillies always got to do it the hard way.
- Bridey Mae: He likes me, I can tell.
- Luann: How?
- Bridey Mae: I just know men, that's all.
- Elma Radnor: That'd make a cat laugh.
- Bill Hickey: Where's all our other friends tonight, Miss Elma? They get tired of the chuck or what?
- Tom Griggs: I think that old biddy went on strike, laid down her teeth in protest.
- Elma Radnor: They're just particular about who they eat with.
- Bill Hickey: What about you, Miss Elma? Are you particular?
- Elma Radnor: If Stone Mountain didn't hold the lease here you two wouldn't...
- Tom Griggs: If Stone Mountain didn't hold the lease, you'd be peddling poontang down in Cinder Bottom, so just shut your mouth about it.
- Bridey Mae: They's hill people.
- Mrs. Elkins: Foothill people, really. Your genuine hill people, they can be dangerous.
- Tom Griggs: He's the red, Hickey. He's the agitator.
- Joe Kenehan: Everybody, see I don't got a gun on me?
- Bill Hickey: What good do you think that's going to do you, red?
- Joe Kenehan: You shoot me, folks'll know it was murder.
- Bill Hickey: Well, that's some cold comfort.
- C.E. Lively: He said some things, Bridey. "She been following me around ever since I got here. Trailing after me like a dog in heat, sniffing around my legs like a brood bitch. She don't wear no drawers", he says, "so she can be ready for whatever stumbles down the pathway."
- Bridey Mae: He didn't! He didn't.
- C.E. Lively: He said you done it with one of the coloreds.
- Bridey Mae: Lying bastard.
- C.E. Lively: I need for you to help me, Bridey. And sometimes you got to tell a little bit of a lie just to get the truth across.
- Joe Kenehan: We fight them with guns, we lose. That's the whole damn story. I'm not going to bullshit you fellas and tell you there won't ever come a time when the people that own this state send the word down to have us all murdered. But if we don't stand together now - as workers - we got no hope at all.
- Singer: [singing] All in all, how graced are we, Sinless never more to be, Deliver us from the gathering storm, Unworthy though we are...
- Few Clothes: Pass the word to stay out from town tomorrow.
- Tom: Something up?
- Few Clothes: Got a feeling. You know how white folks is when they gets all excited.
- Bill Hickey: Guess we both doomed to the hot place.
- Tom Griggs: [looking at Danny] The Lord relies on little shits like this one to spread his word, I don't want no truck with heaven.
- Bill Hickey: And as for hell, well, we been to West Virginia!
- Danny Radnor: [narrating] It was hard times and it was hungry times too. The union relief was spread thin, and the hope of a new day can feed your soul, but leave your belly rumbling.
- Joe Kenehan: Danny, I came here to help.
- Danny Radnor: Sure you did. First people come here to help us with some money. Next we know, we got no land. Then they say they're going to help us with a job and a place to live, and they stick us in some damn coal camp and let us dig out their mines. Now you come here to help us bring in the new day. Well, Hillard ain't going to see no new day. We had about as much help as we can stand. We got to take care of ourselves.
- Joe Kenehan: We got to take care of each other.
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