Introducing the Heartland Coalfield Project

Posted by admin on Jul 30th, 2012 | 0 comments home title

Introducing the Heartland Coalfield Project

Liz and Jeff Lucas hard at work.

The Heartland Coalfield Project is working to tell stories of the people who are directly effected by the coal industry encompassing the Illinois Coal Basin.

The project is raising money to support expenses associated with travel, equipment and printing costs for photos and interviews that will be turned into a book.

You can donate via paypal:

All through our friendship and later our relationship we were working together to bring down the coal industry, and tackle environmental and social injustice when we saw it. Jeff approached it as an organizer and Liz as an artist. Together, and with the help and collaboration of many others, we planned and executed dozens of creative actions for campaigns targeting the groups and corporations exploiting, degrading and destroying peoples’ lives and the world we live in. We worked together on street theatre, flash mobs, die-ins, props all with poignant overtones to speak to those who listened and resonate in the minds of those who didn’t. We worked on campaigns against big banks such as Chase, PNC and Bank of America, Massey Energy, Peabody Energy, Midwest Generation and other corporations aiding in the destruction of the world around us. We’ve worked closely with activists in groups on global and local levels, from different walks of life, different regions and different beliefs. But we have all, fundamentally been united in our belief that we can and will stop this if we work together.

In the Spring of 2011, Jeff began working with The Heartland Coalfield Alliance, a group comprised of residents and farmers in central and southern Illinois whose land was being threatened and compromised by the coal industry and President Obama’s desire to reopen mining in full force, targeting specifically an area he has called the “Saudi Arabia of Coal;” the Illinois Coal Basin.

Jeff was born and raised in Central Illinois’ Vermilion County, the birth place of strip mining in the United States.

Liz has been a lifelong resident of the City of Chicago.