Bessie Fields Smith Gayheart was born January 9, 1931, on Kelly Fork of Lotts Creek in Knott County, Kentucky.  Her father was Lucien Singleton.  Bessie was one of 14 children raised by her other, Sarah (Mullins) Field and her stepfather.  William Riley Fields.  Bessie attended school on Lotts Creek through the eight grade and at age 18 married Kelly Smith, son of Elias and Elizabeth (Shepherd) Smith of Quicksand, Kentucky.  Due to bleak economic conditions, Bessie and her family were forced to leave eastern Kentucky to find work numerous times between 1949 and 1965. However, they were always drawn back to the area and the family and people they loved.  Kelly and Bessie had nine children (five sons and four daughters), eight of whom reside in Knott County.  Their oldest son, Raymond Bart Smith, a Vietnam veteran, died of Cancer in 1999.  Bessie also helped raise three step-children belonging to her second husband, as well as one of her first cousins. In the 1960's, strip mining entered Knott County.  At this time, the rights of coal operator under the broad-form deed were held to take precedence over the rights of the surface (land) owner. There were few state or federal regulations on strip mining, which basically consisted of blasting the mountains into pieces (some weighing a ton or more) and pushing the remains over the side of the hill, destroying forest, streams, gardens, homes-even cemeteries.  In a phone call "back home" from Indiana, Bessie learned that her childhood home was in danger of being destroyed or buried, and that strip mining operators had physically threatened her stepfather.  Bessie and Kelly returned to Kentucky, and
played a primary role in forcing the mining company to leave her stepfather's property.  This was only a temporary victory, however, for the miners eventually returned and forced their way across her stepfather's property, removing the coal and damaging the hillside farm that had supported Bessie's parents and siblings until that time. As strip mining increased in Knott and surrounding counties, the community at large realized that its land and heritage were under attack.  Bessie
joined with other members of the community to oppose this scourge, and with he assistance of some volunteers from outside the region helped organize the Appalachian Group to Save the Land and People.  Bessie was only one of the many strong and outspoken members who dedicated themselves to standing up to the strip miners, and preserving the land, culture, pride, and way of life in the mountains.  The Appalachian Mountains have always held the interest of the nation as a whole, and as the battle over strip mining intensified, gunfire and violence became more common.  Strip mining gained national attention, and people in the rest of the nation wanted to know what was going on.  The Appalachian Group and others in the region who opposed strip mining realized that their cause would be strengthened by telling their story and gaining support
from across the nation.  Bessie was one of the people who was willing and able to communicate this message, and although she had only a limited educations, she left the mountain several times to tell the story of the Appalachian Mountains, strip-mining, and the struggles of the people to stop the destruction.  Bessie gave speeches and slide presentations to large audiences at several distant locations, including the University of Kentucky and Columbus University of New York.  She also testified at least once before a Congressional committee on the ravages of strip mining in an effort to convince Congress to pass legislation to regulate strip-mining.  In 1966, a state law was passed that attempted to regulate strip-mining, but most of the abuses of the mine operations continued.  In June 1970, the Knott
County fiscal court banned strip-mining in the county, but this action was ignored by the state and by the mine operators, and strip mining and its associated destruction continued. Ultimately, however the opponents of strip mining realized some success.  A federal strip mining law was passed in 1978, and there is no doubt that the activities of groups such as the Appalachian Group to Save the Land and People and the efforts of individuals like Bessie Smith in the 1960's and early 1970's were instrumental in making the regulation of strip mining a national issue which culminated in the 1978 law.  Although Bessie is best knows as an anti-strip mine activist, she was also concerned with the economic plight of herself and her neighbors.  these concerns let to her involvement with other organizations such as the Knott County Citizens for Social and Economic Justice and the Council of the Southern Mountains (Clintwood, Virginia).  Bessie and her sister Molly were plaintiffs in a significant lawsuit in the early 1970's that greatly expanded the rights of women and children receiving welfare benefits.  Bessie's experiences led her to conclude that government was no responding to the needs of the people.  In 1972, she ran against Carl D. Perkins, also a Knott County native, the incumbent, and one of the most powerful members of Congress, for the Seventh Congressional District of Kentucky seat in the United States House of Representatives.  Bessie ran her campaign with little moneys and the primary means by which she go out her message (other than word-of-mouth) was an old pickup truck with a loud speaker on the top which she, her children, and her second husband Harold Gayheart drove through the district asking people for their support.  Although she was a huge underdog, Bessie garnered a respectable number of votes from across the district, and she won a moral victory by helping to publicize the issues on which she ran-strip mining, welfare reform, and the plight of the poor and disadvantaged. Bessie died on June 22, 1991, at Hazard, Kentucky, of lung and heart problems that she always attributed to a job she had painting toys at a toy factory in Indiana in the 1950's.  although her children ( and others that she took in and treated as her children) partly remember her as the outspoken activist as she was known publicly, they remember her more as a loving, caring mother, who was always willing to help them and anyone else in need.  The following quotations communicate some of Bessie's philosophy and show the way she had with words that helped make her an effective representative for causes in which she believed.  "All the monies that are going into our welfare system today should be handled something like this:  there should be work for
the men that is able, there should be assistance for men that's not able, assistance for children can't help themselves."  "I don't think I would ever opened my mouth on any issue if it hadn't been for having to go on welfare.  I've seen good people broke down into nothing; people that have worked hard all their lives becoming alcoholics because they had to beg somebody for help.  The begging comes when we have government policies handed out in little doses, just enough to wet their tongues, not enough to quench their thirst.  We need a welfare system that will keep our people well enough to enjoy life instead of punish life and live it lonely.  Give them an opportunity don't break their spirit and their pride, and you'd have a working nation. If you've got a good man, turn him loose, don't bring him down to the lowest standing and put him on his knees begging to people.  When you start begging you start hurting, then you become nobody, then become walked on.:  Note;  Bessie is featured in several books addressing Appalachian issues, including "Our Appalachia: and "Voices from the Mountains."  Additional information is also available from the Oral History Library at Alice Lloyd College and Apalshop in Whitesburg, KY.  

Submitted by Corbett Mullins
March 2003