On day one of a spirited three-day march through the Sylvester/Whitesville area of southern West Virginia, local folks and concerned people from around the country came together to oppose Mountaintop Removal coal mining in the heart of MTR country. They were met with counter demonstraters, whose signs were professionally made. Protesters marched past Marsh Fork Elementary, an elementary school less than three-hundred feet from a coal-loading silo and in the shadow of a 2.8 billion gallon Toxic Sludge impoundment. They also marched past the old UMW headquarters, a hotbed of radical unionism and militant strikes in the late seventies, which now sits abandoned after Massey energy successfully drove unions from the area in the eighties. They also marched past Marsh Fork Highschool, a highschool which was closed two years ago despite community opposition, and is now owned by Rowland land companythe same company which leases land for Massey's MTR sites. Marchers ended the day at Massey's Montcoal facility.

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