Berea debater, advocate for women coal miners, Betty Jean Hall dies at 78

Betty Jean Hall, front right, applauds during the Coal Employment Project's annual conference in Charleston, West Virginia, in 1984. (Photo by Earl Dotter/UMW Journal, with permission)

Betty Jean Hall, the young attorney who overcame coal company resistance to hiring women miners in the 1970s and went on to become an important federal administrative law judge overseeing decisions on appeals of workers’ compensation claims, has died.  She was 78 years old.

Hall attended Buckhorn School in Perry County in southeastern Kentucky and moved to the Berea College Foundation School , a high school then operated by the college, when her father became the head of woodworking in the Industrial Arts Department at Berea College. She graduated from Berea College in 1968 as a history major.  She was an active debater at Berea, challenging teams from Ohio to Florida.

Just one year out of Antioch School of Law in Washington, D.C., Hall founded and led the Coal Employment Project from 1977 to 1988 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  She became a terror to the nation’s coal companies that were refusing to hire women as miners.

The Coal Employment Project filed a lawsuit charging 153 coal companies with sexual bias in hiring. By December 1978, a settlement was reached with Consolidation Coal Company to pay $370,000 to 70 women denied jobs because they were women and to hire one woman for every four men. Two of the other largest coal companies at that time, Island Creek and Peabody coal companies, were under investigation because of Hall’s unrelenting work. As a result, coal companies had hired 830 women miners by late 1978. By the mid-1980s, that number had increased to over 4,000.

The work of the Coal Employment Project was featured in the 1982 Appalshop documentary “Coal Mining Women.”

Jean Kilgore, whom Hall represented in a successful lawsuit against the then Pittston Coal Company, said Hall had a major impact on her life. “Betty Jean embraced me and hundreds of other women with pure kindness, acceptance, support and equality,” Kilgore wrote in an email. “I learned so much from Betty Jean. To value myself, to give a hand up to others, to never give up, to never give in, to never quit caring.

The work with the Coal Employment Project was only one part of several leadership efforts in which she was engaged with social-justice organizations across the Appalachian region. She worked at Highlander Research and Education Center , New Market, Tennessee, and was on the organization’s board of directors and executive committee. She also was chair of the board of the Appalachian Alliance Steering Committee, Southern Appalachian Leadership Training Program from (1979-1985) and was on the board of the directors of the Southeast Women’s Employment Coalition.  The Highlander Appalachian Program focused on leadership development for community leaders all over the mountains to fight for social justice and the right to fully participate in American prosperity.

Hall’s legal and leadership skills were soon noticed by the U.S. Department of Labor. She was appointed as an administrative appeals judge in 2001 for the Benefits Review Board of the federal Department of Labor. The board issued decisions on appeals of worker’s compensation claims under the Longshore and Harbor Worker’s Compensation Act and the Black Lung Benefits amendments to the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969.  She quickly rose to become the chief administrative appeals judge and chairperson of the Benefits Review Board (1994-2001 and 2014-2019) until she retired.  Under her leadership the board streamlined the benefits review process, ensuring that coal miners with black lung disease and other workers injured in their occupations received fair and timely reviews of their applications for compensation.

Her efforts on behalf of workers drew notice. The Louisville Courier-Journal wrote:

“With hard-edged skill hidden in a friendly front-porch style, she is using the federal bureaucracy, the federal courts, and the national media to advance her cause (for women miners). The result, others noted, could be far more than just a ladies’ room in the bathhouse.”

In 1981 she won the John D. Rockefeller Public Service Award. That award presentation stated:

“A lawyer who is committed to helping women overcome barriers in the job market, Betty Jean Hall has successfully led an effort to generate employment opportunities for women in the U.S. coal industry. As director of the Coal Employment Project, she developed a model training program for women miners which has now been adapted for men. She organized support groups across the country to assist isolated women miners in facing common problems. Betty Jean Hall has expanded her efforts to help women in the West to find jobs in the newly identified coal reserves there, and she is developing training programs for mine management officials to orient them to the idea of women in the mining work force. Most important, her leadership has served as an inspiration and practical guide for women who seek to determine for themselves where they will work and under what conditions. The results are improved economic security for women and their families as well as the important affirmation of individual dignity and fundamental fairness.”

She also won a John Hay Whitney Fellowship Award (1978-1980); National Women’s Health Network “Health Advocate of the Year” (1980); Ms. Magazine “Woman to Watch in the 80s” (1980); and Berea College Public Service Award (1984).  In 2023 she was awarded a Distinguished Alumnus Award by Berea College.

Hall’s higher court admissions included the District of Columbia Court of Appeals (1977); Virginia Supreme Court (1977); Tennessee Supreme Court (1979-1989); and the U.S. Court of Appeals, 4th Circuit (1986) .

Hall retired to Cary, North Carolina, in 2019 but found time to serve on the Berea College Alumni Executive Committee. Her proudest accomplishments are children, Tim Hall and Tiffany Olsen (Kevin), and two grandchildren, Blake and Athena.  She is also survived by sister Janet Hall Smith.  All family members reside in Cary.

Hall’s Berea College classmates and friends have founded a scholarship in her name at Berea College (donation information) . The scholarships will go to students from the most economically distressed counties in Appalachia, which are mostly the coalfields.  A memorial service is planned for October at Berea College.

This article is republished from The Daily Yonder under a Creative Commons license.