No Tears for Ernest Creech: A Forgotten Man in the Great Society

Lyndon Johnson's speech, given on the campus of Michigan University lauded a Great Society with abundance and liberty for all, which demanded the end of poverty and racial injustice, but most of all a society which would provide a safe harbor for the working men and women of America. In Hazard, Kentucky that speech meant little to the coal miner's struggle to survive; it would mean even less to the family of Ernest Creech. At 1622 hours on Wednesday, March 3, 1965, Earl Forest, Supt. Leatherwood # 1 Mine in Leatherwood, Kentucky called and reported that an employee had been shot and killed. Detective J.E. Combs and E.E. Wilcox along with the Leslie County Coroner, Dwayne Walker arrived on the scene at about 1800 hours. The victim, Ernest Creech, apparently had not been moved. He had been sitting under the steering wheel of a 1950 International pickup truck; his head slumped over on the right side. He was dressed in coveralls which were soaked with blood. His death stopped the strike, putting the pickets back to work. But for Ernest Creech's Widow, Gladys, and her ten children life would never be the same. This is the story of that life, and the tragic days following his murder at the hands of the distraught men standing in that picket line.