Trouble! at Coal Creek

by Austin Sauerbrei

This gripping graphic novel tells the story of the 1891 Coal Creek War—one of the most significant yet overlooked labor and abolitionist uprisings in the history of the United States.


Told through the eyes of a young Welsh immigrant, Trouble! at Coal Creek is the epic story of a cross-racial struggle to abolish the system of convict-leasing in the mines. Austin Sauerbrei's evocative black-and-white illustrations and masterful storytelling show the personal battles and motivations that led thousands of miners to repeatedly take up arms against the powerful companies, their militias, and politicians.


Lured by coal companies’ promises of good pay, stability, and opportunity, the narrator’s father brought their family across the Atlantic Ocean for work in the mine. The job, however, was deadly, and life grew unbearable as the coal companies immiserated miners and their families. Meanwhile, slavery, The Civil War, Reconstruction, racist terror, and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan were still fresh memories for most. Coal companies relied increasingly on the forced labor of mostly Black prisoners who were loaned out from the state, an extremely profitable continuation of the old system of racist brutality. As Ida B. Wells noted at the time, "The Convict Lease System and Lynch Law are twin infamies which flourish hand in hand."


The miners of Coal Creek, however, set fire to the edifice of convict-leasing and inspired similar rebellions throughout the South. In this captivating graphic novel, Saurbrei brings their overlooked story to life for new generations of organizers.

Genres: Graphic Novels, History, Nonfiction

124 pages, Paperback

Published July 8, 2025

Reviews

[Peacegal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A corner of the history of the labor rights movement is shown in this powerful graphic novel. We are currently returning to the workplace situations that sparked the original battles for labor rights, so parts of this story may be more familiar to modern audiences than they may initially realize.

[Kendall · Rating 4 out of 5]

capital destroys everything. bleak!!!!!

[Rebekah · Rating 5 out of 5]

great way to learn about historical labor resistance!

[Anonymous · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely knocked me flat.

[Theediscerning · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting case in labour law history, whether that be on the scale of Tennessee where it happens, or globally. We start by focusing in on one family, who had left Wales and the mines for Tennessee and, well, the mines – and got nothing like the free future of boundless potential they'd assumed. The focus changes somewhat when the miners strike – well, the guy weighing their individual output was a company man and not a miner and so short-changed every man Jack of them. Filling the void at the pit face the companies bring in convict labour – ie black criminals from elsewhere in the state – who were treated practically as slaves by the mine owners. Carefully avoiding the truth that these chaps were not wanted due to their colour, the book focuses on the miners' attempts to get that made illegal, and to force the companies' hands and give them their employment back with better contracts.

What is certainly novel about this is the Knights of Labor – a kind of Freemasons for the working man, where clandestine support was demanded and expected for all belittled labourers. It's a shame these hardly get a look in – and when they do it's at the end and they're starting to get involved in what some would think terrorism. And there are small flaws quite regularly here – we're shown a meeting and the voice-over tells us the results of the meeting, allowing us to finally learn who and what the meeting was a couple of pages later. We're not told how the miners who had allegedly had their homes uprooted actually stayed in the village – we certainly never see any necessary rebuild.

So little things like those could have been delivered with better clarity, especially for the newcomer to such matters. That said, the newcomer to all this is living in a very dodgy-looking USA where everyone here, from the miners to their sympathisers to the cons replacing them and more would all already be thought anti-state and terroristic. Which brings me on to the final issue – this is preaching to the converted; it will turn the mind of absolutely nobody away from the mine owners' mindset to their staffs' sympathy. So this amounts to a flawed lesson, a firm tribute and message of respect and honour – and a book with zero influence. It looks grand and dynamic on the page for such a dryly serious subject, and is an interesting read. It will lead to more knowledge of Tennessean employment laws, circa 1891, but further than that? I have my doubts. Three and a half stars.

[Online Eccentric Librarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

More reviews (and no fluff) on the blog http://surrealtalvi.wordpress.com/

It is a pleasure to see graphic novels like this come around and teach important historical events that often become forgotten in the march of time. In this case, an important 1890s strike in the coal mines of Tennessee over inhumane conditions and forced convict labor.

The story follows events told from the perspective of one family - immigrants from Wales. But we also get quiet yet powerful perspectives from labor leaders, government officials, and even the convicts themselves. From the black lung plague, to the plight of black Americans often jailed on trumped up charges and then into forced labor, to the evils of the company store, the events leading up to the strike shows the worst of the American capitalist system when it becomes corrupt.

The illustration work is naive and appropriate for the Tennessee story it tells. The author is sparse in words but instead tells a powerful story through the images, letting them do the talking. Interspersed throughout the book are quotes from actual letters or historical documents. The art is in black and white.

The book is fairly short but at the end the author dedicates a page to talking about the following events and how they shaped American history. Highly recommended for an important glimpse of American labor at the turn of the century. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

[Cheryl Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elegant and orderly panel work lays out the story of the founding of the Knights of Labor in 1890s Tennessee. When coal bosses counter a strike by bringing in prison labor, the free miners fight back. The narrator is the white son of a downtrodden miner who once dreamed of freedom but now just keeps his head down and tips the bottle up. But there's also a nearly wordless side story about a Black tenant farmer who gets arrested for sitting next to a jumpy white woman and finds himself lent out to the mine. He and his comrades are freed by the newly founded Knights of Labor in a moment I found incredibly moving. We live in a time coal bosses and prison labor, and the only thing that will save us is solidarity among the oppressed.

[Noah · Rating 3 out of 5]

7/10 rounded down due to personal dislike of graphic novels

This is an amazing graphic novel. I will say I am biased as I tend to not prefer graphic novels over regularly written novels, but this one was amazing. It may be the fact that it's non-fiction, but it was enthralling learning the history of Coal Creek and getting to feel the tension of the era. The twists were great and we'll delivered, although the art style felt lacking when it comes to the human characters.

If you're into graphic novels and labor, you need to pick this up.

[summer · Rating 5 out of 5]

you all know of my passion for the coal miners

this was a fantastic graphic novel about the history of Coal Creek miners' struggle for liberation. I loved the framing of this history through a single family's experience. The art is beautiful and the writing is vivid.

long live graphic novels, and long live workers' rights

[Kelsey Lahr · Rating 5 out of 5]

If your metric for a good book is that it makes you think and feel, this will do it. Especially in our present moment. This was my first graphic novel and I found it utterly compelling. To my totally untrained eye, the art was fantastic. The story was very well composed. Highly recommend.