Highlander Research and Education Center

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Myles Horton, co-founder of Highlander Folk School WHS Image ID 52275.jpg
Myles Horton, co-founder of Highlander Folk School

The Highlander Research and Education Center, formerly known as the Highlander Folk School, is a social justice leadership training school and cultural center in New Market, Tennessee. Founded in 1932 by activist Myles Horton, educator Don West, and Methodist minister James A. Dombrowski, it was originally located in the community of Summerfield in Grundy County, Tennessee, between Monteagle and Tracy City.

Contents

Highlander has provided education for labor and political leaders throughout the South, Appalachia, and the world. Highlander's earliest contributions were to the Depression era labor movement. During the mid-to-late 1950s, it played a critical role in the American Civil Rights Movement, for example, training Rosa Parks prior to her historic role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The school taught many other movement activists including Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) founders Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy, and future Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) members Septima Clark, Anne Braden, James Bevel, Hollis Watkins, Bernard Lafayette, John Lewis, and Julian Bond. Soon after attending Highlander, Bevel, Lafeyette, and Lewis, along with Diane Nash, founded the Nashville Student Movement.

Backlash against Highlander's civil rights work led to the school's closure by the state of Tennessee in 1959. The staff reorganized and moved to Knoxville, where they rechartered the school under the name "Highlander Research and Education Center." Since 1971 it has been located in New Market. The school was featured in the 1937 short film, People of the Cumberland , and the 1985 documentary, You Got to Move . Much of its history was recorded in the book Or We'll All Hang Separately: The Highlander Idea by Thomas Bledsoe. Highlander's archives reside in the Wisconsin Historical Society and in the Louis Round Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

History

Early years

The Highlander Folk School was originally established in Grundy County, Tennessee, on land donated by educator Lilian Wyckoff Johnson. [1] [2] When the school was founded in 1932, the U.S. was in the midst of the Great Depression. Workers in all parts of the country, especially in the South, were met with major resistance by employers when they tried to organize labor unions. Against that backdrop, Horton, West and Dombrowski created the Highlander Folk School "to provide an educational center in the South for the training of rural and industrial leaders, and for the conservation and enrichment of the indigenous cultural values of the mountains." [3] Horton was influenced by observing rural adult education schools in Denmark started in the 19th century by Danish Lutheran Bishop N. F. S. Grundtvig. [4] During the 1930s and 1940s, the school's main focus was labor education and the training of labor organizers. [5] Among its first teachers was the radical activist and author Myra Page. [6] From 1938 to 1953, Highlander ran a nursery school to offer no-cost early learning to the white working-class children of Summerfield, Tennessee. The Highlander Nursery School was a cooperative institution relying on the material support and goodwill of local residents, and it helped build relationships with families who might otherwise have opposed Highlander's pro-civil rights agenda. [7]

Civil rights

In the 1950s, Highlander turned its energies to the rising issues of civil rights and desegregation. In addition to Myles Horton, Zilphia Horton, and others, a key figure during this period was John Beauchamp Thompson, a minister and educator who became one of the principal fund-raisers and speakers for the school. Highlander worked with Esau Jenkins of Johns Island to develop a literacy program for Blacks who were prevented from registering to vote by literacy requirements. The Citizenship Education Schools coordinated by Septima Clark with assistance from Bernice Robinson spread across the South and helped thousands of Blacks register to vote. [8] Later, the program was transferred to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), led by Martin Luther King Jr., because the state of Tennessee was threatening to close the school.

Civil rights activists, most notably King, Bevel, Bernard Lafayette, Rosa Parks, John Lewis, and Julian Bond, came to the Center at different times. Lewis revealed later that he had his first meal in an integrated setting at Highlander. "I was a young adult, but I had never eaten a meal in the company of Black and white diners," the congressman wrote. He continued, "Highlander was the place that Rosa Parks witnessed a demonstration of equality that helped inspire her to keep her seat on a Montgomery bus, just a few weeks after her first visit. She saw Septima Clark, a legendary black educator, teaching side-by-side with (Highlander founder Myles) Horton. For her it was revolutionary. She had never seen an integrated team of equals working together, and it inspired her." [9]

The civil rights anthem, "We Shall Overcome", was adapted from a gospel song, by Highlander music director Zilphia Horton, wife of Myles Horton, from the singing of striking tobacco factory workers from the 1945–1946 Charleston Cigar Factory strike. Shortly afterward, it was published by folksinger Pete Seeger in the People's Songs bulletin. It was revived at Highlander by Guy Carawan, who succeeded Zilphia Horton as Highlander's music director in 1959. Guy Carawan taught the song to SNCC at their first convening at Shaw University. The song has since spread and become one of the most recognizable movement songs in the world. [10]

Backlash

Highlander was the target of violence and suppression many times since its founding. In reaction to the school's desegregation work in the 1950s, Southern politicians, business leaders, and newspapers accused Highlander of fomenting racial strife. [11] In 1957, the Georgia Commission on Education published a pamphlet titled "Highlander Folk School: Communist Training School, Monteagle, Tennessee". [12] A photo of Martin Luther King Jr. alongside Highlander co-founder and known radical Donald Lee West appeared throughout the South, including on billboards. In its surveillance of West, the FBI reported that he had been district director of the Communist Party in North Carolina in the 1930s, [13] though he denied ever being a Communist Party member. [14]

In July 1959, Highlander was raided and padlocked during an interracial voter-education workshop. [15] After a lengthy court battle, the state of Tennessee revoked Highlander's charter, and confiscated and auctioned the school's land and property. [16] According to Septima Clark's autobiography, the Highlander Folk School was closed because it engaged in commercial activities in violation of its charter, [17] which specified it as a non-profit corporation without stockholders or owners. Once the state revoked the school's charter, no one could make a legal claim on any of the property. In 1961 the Highlander staff reincorporated as the Highlander Research and Education Center and moved to Knoxville. A decade later, Highlander relocated to a 104-acre farm near New Market, Tennessee. [18]

Appalachian issues

In the 1960s and 1970s, Highlander focused on worker health and safety in the coalfields of Appalachia. The school's leaders, including president Mike Clark, [19] played a role in the emergence of the region's environmental justice movement. [20] Highlander helped start the Southern Appalachian Leadership Training (SALT) program, and coordinated a survey of land ownership in Appalachia. In the 1980s and 1990s, Highlander expanded into broader regional, national, and international environmentalism; struggles against the negative effects of globalization; and grassroots leadership development in under-resourced communities. Beginning in the 1990s, became involved in LGBT issues, both in the U.S. and internationally, and in youth-focused organizing. [21]

Community-based and participatory research

Highlander programming oftentimes incorporates community-led or participatory research projects. This approach can be traced back to Myles Horton and other founding figures in their mission to encourage communities to trust in and learn from their own experiences. [22] In the 1970s, Highlander staff began to plan and facilitate participatory projects surrounding topics that are often complex for non-expert audiences such as environmental risk and corporate land ownership. [23] This work has continued through collaborations that prioritize building relationships and networks so that people with shared stakes can find themselves in conversation with one another. [24]

In line with its stated mission of "supporting [peoples'] efforts to take collective action to shape their own destiny," [25] many Highlander projects incorporate popular education strategies. Popular education, which draws on the experiences and knowledges of a group of people, is often linked to participatory research initiatives. Highlander uses popular education tactics to develop shared leadership and to emphasize the expertise of lived experiences. [26]

Since 2000

In the 2000s, Highlander concentrated on issues of democratic participation and economic justice, with a focus on youth, immigrants to the U.S. from Latin America, African Americans, LGBT, and impoverished whites. Highlander has worked on uplifting immigrant and refugee leaders at local, state, and national levels. Their work with immigrant rights focuses on highlighting intersectionality with other social movements and increasing the presence of the US South in the movement. [27]

In 2014, the Tennessee Preservation Trust placed the original Grundy County school building on its list of the ten most "endangered" historic sites in Tennessee. [28]

On March 29, 2019, a fire destroyed a building that housed executive offices at the Highlander Center. Nobody was inside the building, but many items were lost, including decades of historic documents, speeches, artifacts, and memorabilia. [29] White supremacist graffiti, in the form of the Iron Guard symbol, was found at the site. County and state investigations [30] [31] resulted in charges being filed in February 2026 for arson ("Malicious Use of Fire") and "Attempted Provision of Material Support to a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization" [32] [33] [34]

Directors

The directors of Highlander have been:

See also

References

  1. ↑ Herbers, M. Sharon (July 3, 2025). "Dr. Lilian W. Johnson (1864-1956), Advocate for Agricultural Cooperatives". Historical Marker Database .
  2. ↑ Preskill, Stephen (2021). Education in Black and White: Myles Horton and the Highlander Center's Vision for Social Justice. University of California Press. pp. 307–09. ISBN   978-0520302051.
  3. ↑ Cook, Vaneesa (2019). Spiritual Socialists: Religion and the American Left. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 157. ISBN   978-0812251654.
  4. ↑ Roberson, Jr., Donald N. (2002). "The Seeds of Social Change from Denmark" (PDF). ERIC.
  5. ↑ "History - 1930–1953: Beginnings & The Labor Years". Highlander Research and Education Center. Archived from the original on August 19, 2003.
  6. ↑ Booker, M. Keith, ed. (2005). Encyclopedia of Literature and Politics. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 543–544. ISBN   978-0313329401 . Retrieved August 4, 2018.
  7. ↑ Bivens, B. M. (Feb 2025). "Sustaining the Movement: Community Care and Collaboration at the Highlander Nursery School, 1938-1953". History of Education Quarterly. 65 (1): 29–52. doi: 10.1017/heq.2024.52 .
  8. ↑ Slate, Nico (May 2022). ""The Answers Come from The People": The Highlander Folk School and the Pedagogies of the Civil Rights Movement". History of Education Quarterly. 62 (2): 191–210. doi: 10.1017/heq.2022.4 . S2CID   248406680.
  9. ↑ Knoxville News Sentinel, July 18, 2020, "Knoville desegregation leader recalls friendship with civil rights icon John Lewis
  10. ↑ McCollum, Sean (January 31, 2022). "We Shall Overcome: The story behind the song". Kennedy Center.
  11. ↑ Glen, John M. (March 1, 2018). "Highlander Folk School". Tennessee Encyclopedia.
  12. ↑ "Labor Day Weekend at Communist Training School", broadside published by Georgia Commission on Education, 1957, Series I, Subseries A, S. Ernest Vandiver collection, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia, Athens, as presented in the Digital Library of Georgia.
  13. ↑ Tierney, Paul (October 27, 1948). "Report on Donald Lee West, FBI Records Obtained through Freedom of Information Act: FBI File 100-559" (PDF). The Black Vault . p. 27.
  14. ↑ Interview with Don West, January 22, 1975. Interview E-0016. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007), Documenting the American South (DocSouth), University Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Jacquelyn Hall and Ray Faherty, interviewers.
  15. ↑ Adams, Frank (1998). "Highlander Research and Education Center" . In Buhle, Mari Jo; Buhle, Paul; Georgakas, Dan (eds.). Encyclopedia of the American Left (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. p. 310. ISBN   978-0195120882.
  16. ↑ Glen, John M. (1988). Highlander: No Ordinary School. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 184–209. ISBN   978-0813116174.
  17. ↑ Clark, Septima; Blythe, LeGette (1962). Echo in My Soul. New York: E. P. Dutton. p. 225. OCLC   493421.
  18. ↑ Glen, John M. (March 1, 2018). "Highlander Research and Education Center". Tennessee Encyclopedia.
  19. ↑ Cattrell, Anne (November 22, 2019). "Big Green Mike: Now You Can Also Call Him Dr. Clark". Mountain Journal.
  20. ↑ McMichael, Pam (April 2005). "Dear Friend of Highlander" (PDF). Highlander Reports. pp. 2–4. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 14, 2006.
  21. ↑ "Children's Justice Camp – Highlander Research and Education Center" . Retrieved March 21, 2022.
  22. ↑ Glowacki-Dudka, Michelle (2012). "Popular Education, Participatory Research, and Local Foods at Highlander Research and Education Center" (PDF). PAACE Journal of Lifelong Learning. 21: 73–86.
  23. ↑ Reason, Peter; Bradbury, Hilary (2005-12-13). Handbook of Action Research: Concise Paperback Edition. SAGE. ISBN   978-1-4462-0419-1.
  24. ↑ Williams, Susan; Mullett, Cathy (August 2016). "Creating Highlander Wherever You Are" . Adult Learning. 27 (3): 98–104. doi:10.1177/1045159516651591. ISSN   1045-1595. S2CID   148054778.
  25. ↑ "Mission & Methodologies – Highlander Research and Education Center". Archived from the original on February 19, 2025. Retrieved March 21, 2022.
  26. ↑ Glowacki-Dudka, Michelle; Griswold, Wendy (2016). "Embodying Authentic Leadership Through Popular Education at Highlander Research and Education Center". Adult Learning. 27 (3): 98–104. doi:10.1177/1045159516651610. ISSN   1045-1595.
  27. ↑ "Strategic Convenings". Highlander Research and Education Center. Archived from the original on October 23, 2015.
  28. ↑ "Nashville — all of it — named to 'endangered' list". Tennessean.com. October 29, 2014. Retrieved August 2, 2015.
  29. ↑ "Fire destroys a building at Highlander Center, burning 'decades of archives'". knoxnews.com. March 29, 2019. Retrieved March 29, 2019.
  30. ↑ Hickman, Hayes (April 2, 2019). "Highlander Center: 'White-power' graffiti found spray-painted at scene of massive fire". Knoxville News. Retrieved April 2, 2019.
  31. ↑ Whitney, W.T. (April 8, 2019). "The Burning of Highlander Center: a Fascist-like Attack". Counterpunch.
  32. ↑ "Tennessee Man Indicted on Arson and Explosive Charges for Setting Fire to Nonprofit Organization". Office of Public Affairs. U.S. Department of Justice. May 8, 2025.
  33. ↑ Silkoff, Shira (February 6, 2026). "Tennessee man facing arson indictment has terror charge tacked on for allegedly giving list of Israelis to Hezbollah". The Times of Israel. Retrieved February 10, 2026.
  34. ↑ "Indictment, United States v. Prater" (PDF). United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. February 5, 2026. Retrieved February 9, 2026– via CourtListener.
  35. ↑ "Meet Our Staff". Highlander Research and Education Center. Archived from the original on June 24, 2024.

Further reading

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