Chapman is spearheading a widows' walk from Charleston, West Virginia, to the nation's capital to "bring awareness to the problem. Most people don't know what happens to widows."

Chapman spoke at the October 13 meeting of the National Black Lung Association (BLA) held at the National Mine Health and Safety Academy. The BLA organizes miners and their families to fight for compensation for black lung disease, a progressive debilitating or fatal condition caused by breathing very fine coal dust.

The BLA chapter in Kanawha Valley, West Virginia, had discussed the walk before the national meeting and participants in the October 13 meeting here voted to endorse the action.

The BLA set up a committee to help organize the march, publicity, and a rally at the end. The rally is tentatively set for April 1, John Mitchell Day, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) holiday honoring the first president of the union.

Chapman said the autopsy on her husband, who died last January, proved he had black lung "after the coal company fought for 19 years to say he didn't." He had six of the seven respiratory ailments that can come from breathing coal dust, she said.

But his death certificate listed respiratory problems third on the list of causes of death, so "I've got a fight on my hands" to get widows' benefits, Chapman said.

About 85 people, mostly retired miners, their spouses, and miners' widows from BLA chapters in coalfields throughout the eastern United States, participated in the meeting. Several workers from black lung clinics also attended.

It took a real fight by coal miners and their spouses, including a miners' strike in 1969, to get black lung recognized as an occupational disease to be covered by the mine bosses and federal government. This included a 23-day strike in West Virginia that forced the Charleston legislature to enact a compensation law.

After this action, a federal Coal Act, which helps guarantee the funds needed to cover miners' lifetime health care, was passed. In the early 1970s about 70 percent of miners with black lung received compensation. The law was amended in 1981, and in the last 10 years less than 10 percent of those who have applied have won benefits.

There is no cure, but with proper control methods it can be prevented. It is estimated that 1,500 miners die every year from the disease.

Currently, 80,000 miners or widows receive black lung benefits. And in addition to opposing any move to improve black lung benefits, the coal companies continue to cheat on safety in the mines, including on dust control. Since 1991 more than 160 companies or individuals have been criminally prosecuted for fraudulent coal dust samples.

Meetings attended by hundreds of people and a march in Washington to defend benefits miners receive under the Coal Act have been organized by the United Mine Workers of America over the past two years.

The BLA conference here took up the legal roadblocks thrown in front of those who are seeking compensation for black lung disease. Two women from the Kanawha Valley chapter spoke about the need to change the federal law so that spouses of miners who were receiving black lung benefits can automatically receive widow's benefits.

"If a man was drawing black lung benefits before 1982, his widow draws automatically," explained BLA president Lewis Fitch. But for claims filed since 1982 the widow must prove that black lung caused or hastened the death of her spouse.

"They didn't say my husband didn't have black lung, just that it didn't kill him," said Peggy Coleman. "I understand that there's things going on now that the country needs, but they're not meeting my needs," she said, pointing to the lack of any bills in Congress to address the benefits for miners' widows.

One BLA member said that when his father died, the doctor agreed that black lung contributed to his death, but that information was not included in the death certificate. If he hadn't immediately caught the error and fought to have it corrected, the government would have cut off benefits to his mother.

Several clinic workers said medical tests for the disease are often conducted by company-minded doctors who administer the blood-gas tests for black lung when the miner is rested, which can result in a healthy reading for even a very sick worker.

A memorial meeting held over the weekend for Mike South, a former president of the BLA who died of black lung this year at age 54, was attended by 100 people. South fought to change the federal regulations to enable more miners and their families to receive black lung compensation. Many remembered that, despite having to carry an oxygen tank wherever he went because of the disease, South was an inspiration to others working to form BLA chapters and fighting for compensation.

United Mine Workers of America president Cecil Roberts spoke at the memorial meeting. Roberts talked about the recent explosion at the Jim Walter No. 5 mine in Brookwood, Alabama, pointing out that at the memorial service at the Brookwood High School stadium he had asked everyone there to remember not only the 13 miners who had just been killed, but also the 100,000 miners who have died in the mines in the United States over the years, as well as the 100,000 who have died of black lung.  
 
 
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