BARBOURVILLE – The Kentucky Commission on Human Rights will hold a Citizen Advocacy Hearing to discuss “Equality and Human Rights in the Kentucky Mining Industry: the Energy that Keeps Kentucky Moving.” This free and public event will be from 6 to 8 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 16, at the Union College Student Center Patridge Conference Room, 310 College Street, Barbourville, Ky.

Dave Cooper with the Mountaintop Removal Road Show will discuss employment rates discrimination in Eastern Kentucky Coal Mines. Tony Oppegard esquire, attorney from Lexington, will discuss existence and sustainability issues of women and minorities in the mining industry as well as the human rights issues facing them as they challenge the industries status quo. Dr. William Turner of Berea College will discuss the lost townships of Eastern Kentucky mining towns that were once predominately African American. Although once on the brink of extinction, these town are seeing a rebirth of African American families.

The Citizen Advocacy Hearings are part of the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights education and outreach program to promote civil rights. The commission enforces the Kentucky Civil Rights Act and federal civil rights laws, which make discrimination illegal. 

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