He went to the boss man, but he closed the door.

It seems you’re not wanted when you’re sick and you’re poor.

You’re not even covered in their medical plans,

And your life depends on the favors of man.

--“Black Lung” by Hazel Dickens

Long before promises to bring back coal jobs, one woman was using her gift for music and her passion for activism to give voices to the people of coal country.

Hazel Dickens was born in a coal-mining region of West Virginia. Her father was a Baptist minister and part-time banjo player who also drove trucks for the mining companies to help make ends meet for a family with 11 children. Surrounded by traditional music and taught by her father, it isn’t surprising that Dickens’ talents pulled her in the direction of bluegrass.

While women were members of various bluegrass and traditional country music groups, it was rare to find a woman with her own record contract. In 1965, Dickens and Alice Gerrard became the some of the earliest women to have their own bluegrass record contracts when they formed the group Hazel and Alice, releasing the first of their two albums with Folkways Records in 1965 titled Who's That Knocking (And Other Bluegrass Country Music). The duo also put out albums through Rounder Records.

Dickens and Gerrard split up in 1976, but Dickens continued to make music, first as a contributor to movie soundtracks, among these two documentaries about the lives of non-unionized coal miners (Harland County, USA, 1976) and women in the automotive industry (With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women's Emergency Brigade, 1979). Dickens continued as a solo artist with Rounder Records, releasing three albums in the 1980s that included bluegrass and contemporary country pieces. In 2008 she received the National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts for her work in both bluegrass and women’s music. Since 2014, the DC Bluegrass Union has held the Hazel Dickens Song Contest in her honor.

Her status as a music trailblazer would be reason enough for us to know about Hazel Dickens, but it is the subjects of her music and her advocacy for women’s and workers rights that make her inspiring.

Coal jobs are not safe jobs, and protests in the forms of song, picket lines, and contacting elected officials have been part of every decade. Federal funding to treat coal miners for black lung is a continual topic of debate every year since 1973, but back in the 1960s, there were debates about whether it existed, how miners got it, and who should pay for health care. Dickens knew about the disease because several of her brothers died from it.

Dickens’ 1969 song Black Lung tackled the realities of coal miners’ lives, and in fact the lives of most workers until laws and social expectations improved health care for workers around the country.

Her lyrics gave voices to the women who lived within the coal mining industry and the traditional culture that supported it. Throughout her career, her music and public appearances highlighted the experiences of women and girls. “Custom Made Woman Blues” on the Rounder Records album Hazel & Alice (1973) expressed the confusion women feel about trying to be perfect so they can attract men. Economic problems for working women, including the question of who keeps the money women make, were the topic of Dickens’ “Working Girl Blues” in 1976. But arguably her most powerful feminist song is “Don't Put Her Down, You Helped Put Her There,” which directly addresses issues of violence against and sexual exploitation of women and was released on the 1973 album.

In honor of Hazel Dickens’ birthday, let’s listen to her song “Don’t Put Her Down,” which has been performed by several artists since Dickens first wrote and recorded it. For your convenience, the lyrics are printed below.

You pull the string

She's your plaything

You can make her or break her, it's true

You abuse her, accuse her

Turn her round and use her

Then forsake her any time it suits you

There's more to her than powder and paint

Than her peroxided bleached-out hair

And if she acts that way

It's 'cause you've had your day

Don't put her down, you helped put her there

She hangs around

Playing her clown

While her soul is aching inside

She's heartbreak's child

She just lives for your smile

To build her up in a world made by man

There's more to her than powder and paint

Than her peroxided bleached-out hair

And if she acts that way

It's 'cause you've had your day

Don't put her down, you helped put her there

At the house down the way

You sneak and you pay

For her love, her body or her shame

Then you call yourself a man

And say you just don't understand

How a woman could turn out that way

There's more to her than powder and paint

The men she picks up at the bar

And if she acts that way

It's 'cause you've had your day

Don't put her down, you helped put her there

And if she acts that way

It's 'cause you've had your day

Don't put her down, you helped put her there