Larry Gibson (1946 – September 9, 2012) was an anti-mining environmentalist from West Virginia, who spent the majority of his adult life opposing mountaintop removal coal mining in the area, specifically at Kayford Mountain.
[4] He returned to Kayford Mountain shortly afterwards, where he found that mountaintop removal coal mining operations had become so prevalent that one nearly infringed on his family’s cemetery plot.
[4] Gibson began his activism by using the area as an exhibition of mountaintop mining and he achieved this by inviting reporters, celebrities, other activists and locals to observe the large-scale digging operations.
[4][6] Gibson also wandered the state educating locals on the mining activities’ effects, having once walked from Harper’s Ferry across southern West Virginia to Huntington on his own, speaking to communities he encountered on the way of his campaign.
[3] He travelled nationally and internationally, speaking to community groups, political rallies, shareholder meetings and government agencies, usually wearing his trademark baseball cap and neon-green T-shirt with the motto “Love them or leave them, just don’t destroy them.”[7] Money was not the only tactic that was employed to stop Gibson; he is only too keen to show visitors bullet holes in the wood of his cabin,[3] the same cabin that was also ransacked at one point.
[3] There are many environmentalists that say they have drawn inspiration from his character of activism, among them the 350.org founder Bill McKibben, the environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the climate scientist James Hansen.