abstract: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (1952) frames this article's discussion of subterranean coal mines as sites of both enslavement and resistance for Black coal miners. Examining this text in concert with Yaa Gyasi's 2016 novel Home-going and Robert Armstead's 2002 memoir Black Days, Black Dust excavates Black voices in literary works about coal mining. Describing the material experiences of bodies engaged in this type of labor, these authors center people and bodies rendered hidden in "underground cities," with such spaces becoming sites of resistance to capitalistic power structures that exploit workers' bodies in service of modern industrial labor practices.
Regina M. Young (Thu,) studied this question.