They'll Cut Off Your Project: A Mingo County Chronicle (WEST VIRGINIA & APPALACHIA)

In old England, if a king didn’t like you, he would cut off your head. Now, if they don’t like you, they’ll cut off your project!

As the Johnson Administration initiated its war on poverty in the 1960s, the Mingo County Economic Opportunity Commission project was established in southern West Virginia. Huey Perry, a young, local history teacher was named the director of this program and soon he began to promote self-sufficiency among low-income and vulnerable populations. As the poor of Mingo County worked together to improve conditions, the local political infrastructure felt threatened by a shift in power. Bloody Mingo County, known for its violent labor movements, corrupt government, and the infamous Hatfield-McCoy rivalry, met Perry’s revolution with opposition and resistance. 

In They’ll Cut Off Your Project, Huey Perry reveals his efforts to help the poor of an Appalachian community challenge a local regime. He describes this community’s attempts to improve school programs and conditions, establish cooperative grocery stores to bypass inflated prices, and expose electoral fraud. Along the way, Perry unfolds the local authority’s hostile backlash to such change and the extreme measures that led to an eventual investigation by the FBI. They’ll Cut Off Your Project chronicles the triumphs and failures of the war on poverty, illustrating why and how a local government that purports to work for the public’s welfare cuts off a project for social reform.

Huey Perry, a native of Mingo County, West Virginia and the son of coal miner, was named Director, Mingo County Economic Opportunity Commission project at the age of 29. Later, he became the director of the Low-Income Housing Project for Tech Foundation of West Virginia Institute of Technology.  He holds a BA from Berea College, Kentucky and an MA in Political Science from Marshall University, West Virginia and is an author, entrepreneur, teacher, student, volunteer, chairman, business owner,  and farmer.

Jeff Biggers is the American Book award-winning author of The United States of Appalachia, and Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland.