Ben Holt was a coal miner with a unique vision of the black filth he worked in. For him the coal was power -- the fuel for his burning ambition to emerge from the depths of the pits. This is the exciting story of Ben Holt's rise to the top -- and of a hundred other people whose lives were changed, bent, broken, or fulfilled by the rising force and ambition of a man of destiny. A man who built a labor movement unlike any other the world has ever known, who fought against great power but loved the taste of what he fought, who fought with guns, strikes, ballots, and with his own fiery personality.