Before its conclusion, an unknown number of miners, deputies and bosses would be killed, state and federal troops would occupy the county more than half a dozen times, two acclaimed folk singers would emerge, union membership would oscillate wildly and workers in the nation's most anti-labor coal county would ultimately be represented by a union.

On February 16, 1931, to maximize profits, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%.

Reacting to the unrest created within Harlan's impoverished labor force, the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) attempted to organize the county's miners.

[4]: 46  The strikebreakers were protected by private mine guards with full county deputy privileges, who were legally able to exercise their powers with impunity outside the walls of their employers.

Songwriter Florence Reece reported, Sheriff J. H. Blair and his men came to our house in search of Sam – that's my husband – he was one of the union leaders.

[4]: 47 In the wake of the UMW failure, the Communist National Miners Union (NMU) made a brief play for Harlan County.

The smaller but more passionate NMU made greater relief efforts than the UMW, opening several soup kitchens in the county.

[9] Several events broke the NMU's foothold, local labor organizers, many of them clergy, learned of the Communist leadership's animosity toward religion and denounced the organization, Young Communist League organizer Harry Simms was killed in Harlan and the American Red Cross and local charities, who had been unwilling to take sides in a labor dispute, began giving aid to blacklisted miners who were unemployable as the NMU's financial troubles necessitated the closing of its soup kitchens.

[4]: 79 Under the auspices of the National Industrial Recovery Act, which promoted the right to organize one's workplace and outlawed discrimination and firing based on union membership, approximately half of Harlan's coal mines, those in the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association, were run as open shops from October 27, 1933 – March 31, 1935.

On July 7, a group of deputies, enraged at a public celebration of the Wagner Act, dispersed the crowd by beating several miners.

"[12][13] He protected the miners despite the fact that a bomb had killed Harlan County Attorney Elmon Middleton several weeks earlier.

[14] Author and activist Theodore Dreiser conducted an investigation under the auspices of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP) of the American Communist Party.

The Dreiser Committee also discovered the labor folk singer Aunt Molly Jackson and her younger half-brother Jim Garland, putting them on a tour of 38 states to raise funds for the strikers.