United Mountain Defense Hosts Teach-In Tomorrow

The teach-in is organized by a group of autonomous activists. We will present information outside of the UBS Knoxville branch office (in the First Tennessee Plaza) on 800 Gay Street. UBS is among the top funders of mountaintop removal coal mining in the country, and acted as the adviser to the Alpha-Massey merger which created the largest single MTR coal company in the country, which is responsible for 25% of MTR coal.

The teach-in will start at noon on Thursday and will last about an hour. We will have graphs and detailed information about UBS and mining. At the end of the teach-in, we will ask participants to enter the UBS office and hand over a postcard with a picture of a mountaintop removal site and say, something like, "I am a citizen of Appalachia and I want UBS to change its official policy on MTR and stop funding destructive industries".

The Knoxville branch of UBS has a history of aggressive behavior towards protestors. They have called city police on peaceful activists who entered their office to deliver coal during Christmas. They detained protestors who entered the plaza to hand out information about UBS and escorted them out of the building within five minutes of the protestors entering. They yelled aggressively at the protestors. We expect the UBS office managers to be very hostile towards the teach-in, but we are determined to publicize their role in mountaintop removal and create enough pressure that they change their official policy.