CHARELSTON, W.Va. –The life and legacy of former United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts are on display in the Capital City.
Tuesday evening, friends, family, UMWA members and community members gathered for the opening of the Cecil E. Roberts Legacy Museum at UMWA District 17 headquarters, 1300 Kanawha Blvd. E. in Charleston.
The museum aims to tell Roberts’ story with the union, which spanned 48 years. He became president in 1995, succeeding Richard Trumka, and served in the role for 30 years before retiring in 2025. Prior to that, he served as the union’s international vice president beginning in 1982.
Roberts said he appreciates the time and effort that went into making the museum possible.
“People spent days here getting this ready, painting it, doing carpentry work, putting up walls, putting pictures up, and hunting for artifacts that might speak to my tenure with the union,” he said.
In February, retired UMWA communications director and President of the Cecil E. Roberts Legacy Fund Phil Smith told MetroNews that the Legacy Fund came up with the idea for the museum. The fund works to raise money to educate West Virginians about the state’s labor history.
Smith said he believes the museum does a good job of capturing who Roberts was and the work he did for the union.
“I think we’ve done a pretty good job at presenting the story of the union with Cecil Roberts as the central character,” he said on MetroNews Midday Tuesday afternoon.
Roberts said his ultimate goal is to educate young people about what the union accomplished.
“I actually believe that this would be helpful to educate kids to understand, to at least understand why some of these battles were fought and how perhaps somebody in their family died so that they could have a decent education,” he said.
He said the museum can be used as an educational resource for students at all levels, including elementary school, middle school, high school and college.
The museum is filled with photos, awards and statues that tell the story of Roberts’ work and contributions to the union.
Roberts said that when he looks back on his career, he believes two developments were truly transformational for the union.
He pointed to the 1989 Pittston strike, which lasted 321 days. The strike began after Pittston Coal Co. terminated health care benefits for about 1,500 retirees, widows and disabled dependents.
Roberts also pointed to a wave of coal industry bankruptcies in the 2010s that put the health care and pensions of thousands of retirees at risk.
“Today the pension plan is heading towards fully funded, everyone has their healthcare, no one lost their healthcare, which without a union, without us collectively everybody would have lost their pensions, and everybody would have lost their healthcare and these clinics in the coalfields would have closed,” he said.
Erin Bates, founding director of the Cecil E. Roberts Legacy Fund and Museum, said that when Roberts announced his retirement last year, it was an easy project to begin.
She said it didn’t take much to showcase the impact Roberts had throughout his career with the union.
“Starting from working at the mine, to his time in Vietnam, to being district 17 vice president, and obviously moving to vice president of the international office, it didn’t take long to put this together and to be able to share this with Charleston, West Virginia means a lot,” Bates said.
Bates also discussed some of the aspects of Roberts’ life and career they wanted to highlight, including his family’s long history in the coal mines, the generations who fought for health care benefits and his work with the union.
She said the museum will eventually include a tribute to the union members who rode the buses, attended rallies and spoke to members of Congress, because Roberts wants to recognize their contributions as well.
“So, he wants a room dedicated to the members, to the people, to the ones who actually made a difference,” Bates said.
She also said they are developing a rotating exhibit to highlight other important aspects of union history, including artifacts from the Battle of Blair Mountain and a feature on Earl Dotter, with the goal of encouraging visitors to return to the museum. Bates also said the museum will show a 30-minute documentary on Roberts’ life and legacy.
Find more at the museum’s website cerlegacy.org.