Lee Adkins was one of brothers, cousins, uncles and fathers whose courage underground found work and payment where skin color mattered less and the lesser men above ground failed to tread.  Miners, both Black and White, were unique above all else in the classical virtue of courage, and the attributes of stamina not given to average men.   

Dating back to at least the 1730s when immigrant French Huguenots began mining coal in the vicinity of modern day Richmond, ... the courage and energy of enslaved Black men and boys was used to mine coal for the energy and comfort of White men, women and children above ground.

To get the enslaved men to undertake the dangerous work wherein many limbs and lives were lost, ... mine owners offered financial incentives to both the slave owners and slave workers often leased from cash poor owners of themselves and their kinfolks.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~blackcoalminers/index.htm

	Census Place	Pigg River, Pittsylvania, Virginia
	Family History Library Film	1255385
	NA Film Number	T9-1385
	Page Number	250D