Harry Simms

Who was Harry Simms?

Harry Simms, born Harry Simms Hersh, was a Jewish American labor leader from Springfield, Massachusetts. He was sent by the National Miners Union to Harlan County, Kentucky during the Harlan County War to organize the mine workers there.

On February 10, 1932, Simms was shot near Brush Creek in Knox County by a sheriff's deputy who also worked as a mine guard for the local coal company. Simms died of his wound at Barbourville Hospital the next day. He was memorialized in a ballad, "The Death of Harry Simms" by Aunt Molly Jackson and Jim Garland, and his funeral service at the Bronx Coliseum attracted a crowd of some 20,000 people. The famous folksinger Pete Seeger popularized "The Death of Harry Simms" after learning it from Jim Garland at the Newport Folk Festival in the 1960s. Tao Rodriguez Seeger has performed a cover version of the song with the Allegro Youth Orchestra.