SONG FOR A HARD-HIT PEOPLE
A Memoir of Antiracist Solidarity from a Coal Miner’s Daughter
Beth Howard
Haymarket Books (21 April 2026)
Trade paper • ISBN-13: 9798888904893 • US $14.95 • 5 in x 8 in • 244 pgs.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
A story of struggle and perseverance from an Eastern Kentucky woman who answered Florence Reese’s timeless question, “Which side are you on?” by organizing her people with love and class solidarity.
Activist and organizer Beth Howard invites readers to trace her transformational story of growing up in rural Appalachia facing economic hardship, patriarchal violence, and the impact of extractive industries to become a leading organizer of working-class antiracism, engaging in the street protests of the Black Lives Matter movement and the larger resistance to Donald Trump and MAGA racists.
In this deeply personal story Howard tells us about how her place and people, especially her dad, shaped her. She also details a political and systems analysis that shows how billionaires hold power by using racism to convince working-class white people to side with whiteness instead of their class. Howard makes the case that white Appalachians and rural white working-class people have a shared interest in, and a powerful history of, being in class solidarity with Black and Brown people. Howard delves into the rich traditions of organization and resistance in Appalachia, like the ten thousand interracial miners of the so-called Red Neck Army (known by the red bandanas worn around their necks), who in 1921 refused to be segregated and waged the largest working-class insurrection since the Civil War.
Howard’s story is particular but not uncommon. Too many of us face the same struggle for the basic necessities of life: somewhere decent to live, good food to eat, health care that doesn’t break the bank, jobs that don’t kill us. As she reminds us, we haven’t got a chance—unless we organize. In the best of storytelling traditions, her prose is at once heart-breaking and inspiring, insightful and provocative, and filled to the brim with courageous humanity.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Beth Howard is the Cultural Strategist for Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), the largest national organization bringing white people into the fight for racial and economic justice. She grew up in a rural white working-class community in Eastern Kentucky and has organized in the American South for two decades, primarily in her beloved home state of Kentucky.
Beth has been a lead organizer on campaigns to raise the minimum wage and restore voting rights. She’s also engaged white working-class Southerners on successful electoral campaigns, including ones that defeated an abortion ban ballot initiative in the 2022 Kentucky midterms and reelected Democratic Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear in 2023—and ran a rural field office in the 2020 Georgia runoff election.
Beth is the creator of the viral narrative campaign Rednecks for Black Lives, and has been featured on the NBC News National Day of Racial Healing special, Matter of Fact’s Listening Tour with Soledad O’Brian, NPR’s Here and Now, Now This News, in the book Power Concedes Nothing: How Grassroots Organizing Wins Elections, the New York Times, and The Boston Globe. Beth lives in Lexington, Kentucky. Song for a Hard-Hit People is her first book. You can find her on Substack at Working Class Love Notes and online at bethhowardky.com.
RIGHTS INFORMATION:
Please contact subagents for the following languages and territories:
| Language/Territory | Subagent |
|---|---|
| China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam | Big Apple Agency |
| Dutch | Sebes & Bisseling Literary Agency |
| English outside North America | David Grossman Literary Agency |
| French | Deborah Druba Agency |
| German | Paul & Peter Fritz AG Literatur Agentur |
| Greek | Read n' Right Agency |
| Hebrew | The Deborah Harris Agency |
| Italian | Berla & Griffini Rights Agency |
| Japanese | The English Agency (Japan) Ltd |
| Korean | BC Agency, or Korea Copyright Center |
| Portuguese | RIFF Agency |
| Russia/Baltics/Eastern Europe | Prava I Prevodi |
| Scandinavia | Sebes & Bisseling Literary Agency |
| Spanish in Latin America | MB Agencia Literaria |
| Spanish in Spain | MB Agencia Literaria |
| Turkish | Anatolialit Agency |
For all other languages/territories, please contact Roam Agency.