Highlander Folk School

Highlander Folk School
source
Name	Highlander Folk School
Founded	0 1932
Founders	Myles Horton, Don West
Location	Monteagle, Tennessee
Focus	Adult education, social justice, labor movement, civil rights movement
Dissolved	0 1961
Successor	Highlander Research and Education Center

Highlander Folk School

The Highlander Folk School was an influential adult education center and organizing hub founded in 1932 in Monteagle, Tennessee. It played a pivotal role in training leaders for the labor movement in the 1930s and 1940s and later became a crucial incubator for the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. Its unique educational philosophy, emphasizing grassroots leadership and participatory democracy, made it a target for political opposition but also a model for social change organizations.

History and Founding

Highlander Folk School was founded in 1932 by Myles Horton, a Tennessee native and Union Theological Seminary graduate, and Don West, a poet and fellow activist. Inspired by the Danish folk high school movement and Horton's studies with Reinhold Niebuhr at the University of Chicago, the school was established on a simple principle: to provide education for social change to adults from poor and working-class communities in the Appalachian South. Its original location was in the small community of Monteagle, Tennessee, on the Cumberland Plateau. The school operated independently, funded by donations and workshop fees, and was not affiliated with any college or university.

Educational Philosophy and Methods

The school's educational approach was deeply influenced by Horton's belief in the wisdom of ordinary people and the ideas of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, though Horton's practices predated Freire's formal theories. Rejecting traditional teacher-student hierarchies, Highlander's method was based on participatory democracy and experiential learning. Workshops were designed to help participants analyze their own experiences, share problems, and develop collective solutions. This method, often called "the Highlander idea," focused on identifying and developing local leaders rather than importing outside experts. Music, particularly folk songs adapted for the movement, was a central tool for building community and spreading messages.

Role in the Labor Movement

During the 1930s and 1940s, Highlander became a vital training ground for the burgeoning industrial unionism movement in the South. It offered literacy classes and leadership training for workers and union organizers, particularly from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The school trained organizers for major strikes in the textile industry, such as the 1934 textile strike, and in mining. It was one of the few integrated spaces in the Jim Crow South, bringing together Black and white workers to discuss common economic struggles, which laid an early foundation for its later civil rights work. Key labor figures like John L. Lewis and Eleanor Roosevelt supported or visited the school.

Involvement in the Civil Rights Movement

In the 1950s, Highlander shifted its primary focus to the struggle against racial segregation. It became a key safe space and strategic planning center for civil rights activists. Rosa Parks attended a workshop on desegregation just weeks before her historic act of defiance on a Montgomery bus in 1955. The school regularly hosted leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, James Bevel, and Septima Clark, who participated in and led workshops on nonviolence, voter registration, and direct action. The famous anthem "We Shall Overcome" was adapted and popularized at Highlander, becoming the movement's signature song.

Citizenship Schools

One of Highlander's most significant and enduring contributions was the development of the Citizenship School program, conceived by Septima Clark and further developed with Bernice Robinson. Initiated in the late 1950s on Johns Island, South Carolina, these schools were designed to empower Black adults in the rural South by teaching basic literacy as a tool to pass voter registration literacy tests. The curriculum used practical materials like newspapers and driver's license applications. The program was phenomenally successful in registering thousands of new Black voters. In 1961, the program was transferred to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), where it became a cornerstone of their voter education project.

Controversies and Closure

Highlander's radical interracial work and alleged communist ties made it a constant target for segregationists and anti-communist investigators. It was investigated by the Tennessee State Senate, the Georgia Commission on Education, and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). J. Edgar Hoover's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted surveillance on the school for decades. In 1959, a John Birch Society-inspired television documentary falsely smeared the school. These attacks culminated in 1961 when the State of Tennessee revoked Highlander's charter and padlocked its property, using a technicality involving the sale of beer. The original school was forcibly closed and its assets seized.

Legacy and Influence

Although the original Highlander Folk School was closed, its work continued almost immediately. Myles Horton and others re-established the institution as the Highlander Research and Education Center, which relocated to Knoxville, Tennessee, and later to New Market, Tennessee. The center continues its mission of supporting grassroots organizing for economic justice and environmental justice. Highlander's legacy is profound: it demonstrated the power of popular education for social change, trained a generation of civil rights leaders, and created models like the Citizenship Schools that were replicated nationwide. It is remembered as a "cradle of the United States|American Civil Rights Movement.