Highlander Folk School

Highlander Folk School
source
Name	Highlander Folk School
Founded	1932
Founder	Myles Horton, Don West
Location	Monteagle, Tennessee
Focus	Adult education, Labor movement, Civil rights movement
Dissolved	1961 (reopened as Highlander Research and Education Center)

Highlander Folk School The Highlander Folk School was an adult education center and community organizing school founded in 1932 in Monteagle, Tennessee. It played a pivotal, though controversial, role in training leaders for the Labor movement in the 1930s and 1940s and later for the Civil rights movement in the 1950s. Its educational philosophy, centered on empowering ordinary people to address social and economic injustice, made it a significant and often targeted institution in the struggle for American social change.

Founding and Early Mission

The Highlander Folk School was established in 1932 by Myles Horton, a native Tennesseean, and Don West, a fellow educator and poet. Inspired by the Danish folk high schools and Horton's own Christian socialist beliefs, the school's original mission was to educate and empower impoverished adults in the Appalachian region. Located in Grundy County, Tennessee, its early work focused on addressing the severe economic hardships of the Great Depression, teaching literacy, and fostering cooperative community solutions. The founders believed in the capacity of local people to analyze their own problems and develop democratic strategies for improvement, setting a foundation for its later, more politically charged work.

Educational Philosophy and Methods

Highlander's educational approach was fundamentally non-traditional and participatory, rejecting formal academic hierarchies. Its philosophy, often termed "education for social change," was heavily influenced by Horton's studies with progressive educator John Dewey and Brazilian theorist Paulo Freire's later concepts of critical pedagogy. The school employed methods of popular education, using music, storytelling, and role-playing to facilitate discussion. Workshops were designed to be experiential, with participants—often Sharecroppers, coal miners, and factory workers—sharing their own experiences as the primary curriculum. This method aimed to build confidence and develop grassroots leadership, emphasizing that solutions should come from within communities rather than being imposed by external experts.

Role in Labor Organizing

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Highlander became deeply involved in the southern Labor movement. It served as a crucial training ground for union organizers, particularly from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The school offered workshops on labor law, collective bargaining, and nonviolent protest tactics for workers in the burgeoning Textile industry and the dangerous mining industry. Notable labor figures like John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers supported its work. Highlander's most famous contribution to labor culture was its role in adapting and popularizing the song "We Shall Overcome," which began as a union hymn, "I'll Overcome Someday." This period cemented the school's reputation as a radical institution aligned with left-wing causes.

Involvement in the Civil Rights Movement

In the 1950s, Highlander shifted its primary focus to the burgeoning struggle for Racial equality in the Jim Crow South. It became one of the few fully integrated spaces in the region, hosting leadership training workshops for emerging African-American activists. A young Martin Luther King Jr. attended a workshop in 1957, and the school trained countless other pivotal figures, including Rosa Parks (who attended a workshop months before her historic Montgomery bus boycott), John Lewis, Julian Bond, and Fannie Lou Hamer. These workshops taught the philosophy and tactics of nonviolent resistance, citizenship education, and voter registration strategies. Highlander was instrumental in fostering the network that led to the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Controversies and Legal Challenges

Highlander's integrated workshops and its founders' associations with known Communists and socialists made it a constant target for criticism and suppression. Opponents, including segregationist politicians like Tennessee Senator James B. Frazier Jr. and investigative committees such as the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), accused it of being a subversive center for Communism. The school faced relentless scrutiny from state authorities, including the Tennessee Department of Education and the Georgia Commission on Education. In 1959, a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation raid and a subsequent sensationalized trial, fueled by testimony from undercover investigators, led to the revocation of its charter. The state charged the school with violating Tennessee law by operating an integrated facility and selling alcohol without a license.

Closure and Legacy

The Highlander Folk School was officially forced to close in 1961 after the state seized and auctioned its property. However, its work did not end. Myles Horton and the staff immediately re-established the institution as the Highlander Research and Education Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, and later moved it to its current location in New Market, Tennessee. The legacy of the original Folk School is profound. It demonstrated the power of grassroots, participatory education in building social movements. Its most enduring symbol, the song "We Shall Overcome," became the definitive anthem of the Civil rights movement. While controversial in its time, Highlander is now widely recognized by historians as a critical incubator for democratic leadership and a testament to the long tradition of civic education aimed at strengthening national cohesion through the extension of fundamental rights.