The Day Ollie “Widow” Combs Faced the Bulldozers

On a cold November day in 1965, a sixty-one-year-old Appalachian widow walked onto a mountainside in Knott County, Kentucky, and faced a line of bulldozers sent to tear apart the land surrounding her home. Ollie Widow Combs had no corporation behind her, no political power, and no courtroom victory waiting in her favor. She had [ ]