The Highlander Research and Education Center is the successor of the Highlander Folk School, founded in 1932 in the Cumberland Mountains near Monteagle, Tennessee, by Myles Horton and Don West. Active first in the labor movement, the School shifted its emphasis in the 1950s to the civil rights movement and in the mid-1960s to the struggle against poverty, mainly in the Appalachians. Branded “a communist training school” by opponents, Highlander Folk School had its charter revoked and all its property confiscated by the State of Tennessee in 1961, primarily because of its civil rights activities. However, the same program, with the same staff, was continued at the newly chartered Highlander Research and Education Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. In 1971, as its program emphasis shifted to Appalachia, Highlander's headquarters were moved to an Appalachian mountainside near New Market, Tennessee.
Intended as a workers' education school and a community center, the School's first activities included classes in socialism, sociology and economics for community residents, and a program of labor education for outside students who boarded at the school. Within six months, these activities expanded beyond the community as staff and students participated in the 1932 Wilder, Tennessee coal strike. By 1936, these early activities had settled into a 3-pronged program of community work, residence courses, and extension projects. One educational principle was applied in these and in all subsequent Highlander activities: it is necessary to start education where people are and then let them decide what is important for them to know.
In April of 1933, Don West left Highlander while Myles Horton remained as guiding spirit of the School and educational director until 1973. Born July 9, 1905 in Savannah, Tennessee, Horton worked his way through Cumberland University graduating in 1928, and then studied at the University of Chicago and Union Theological Seminary in New York. Following college, he was employed as Tennessee secretary for the YMCA. Heavily influenced by Reinhold Niebuhr and by his earlier experiences in Tennessee, Horton decided to establish a school in the mountains, a school which would teach the people what they needed to know to gain power over their own lives. In 1931, he travelled to Denmark to study the folk schools there, and upon his return, on land provided by Dr. Lilian Johnson, a local resident eager for community improvement, he founded what was first called the "Southern Mountain School" in Summerfield, near Monteagle, Tennessee.
From the beginning, the School was supported almost entirely by donations, and staff received only room and board, and occasional subsistence pay. Money was always short, and staff turnover was high. Early staff members included Jim Dombrowski (later director of the Southern Conference Educational Fund), Zilla Hawes, John Thompson, Leon Wilson, and Ralph Tefferteller. In 1935, an important staff member was added when former student Zilphia Johnson married Myles Horton and soon became the leader of the music and drama activities which proved so significant in Highlander's program.
In the 1930s, the program concentrated on 6-week residence courses of labor education; staff assistance in union organizing, particularly in textile and hosiery mills; and community work. The community work included a variety of projects ranging from teaching singing classes to organizing cooperatives to gaining control of the county political structure. Later a community nursery school was operated.
As the School became more well-known, it became more of a labor school. Working primarily with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), Highlander began putting on workshops sponsored by individual unions who wanted their members to absorb not only the general labor outlook found at Highlander but also specific skills such as how to handle grievances, make posters, use parliamentary procedure, or set up a recreational program. The extension program which previously consisted of supporting strikes and helping organize new unions was expanded to include full educational programs for unions in their home areas. These records document such programs in Alcoa, Tennessee; New Orleans, Louisiana; Atlanta, Georgia; and Memphis, Tennessee.
Highlander joined in special working arrangements with two national labor organizations,
tHighlander joined in special working arrangements with two national labor organizations, the National Farmers Union (NFU), and the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA). Between 1944 and 1950, Myles Horton and staff members Louis Krainock and Tom Ludwig worked closely with the Farmers Union in Tennessee and Alabama building membership, establishing an insurance program, and setting up buying and selling cooperatives and a fertilizer plant. Between 1951 and 1953, Horton served as Director of Education for the UPWA, supervising a regional educational staff in a program aimed at grass-roots activation and development of leaders. He resigned from UPWA in March 1953, after concluding that the vice-president in charge of the organization was not truly committed to the idea of an educational program coming from the rank and file, rather than being presented to the rank and file. This violated Highlander's basic principle of letting the people decide what they need to know.
The work with the UPWA was the last major labor union activity conducted by Highlander. Beginning in 1949, when the CIO cancelled their term because of alleged communist influences at Highlander, relations between the School and the labor movement became strained. The CIO insisted on a statement of opposition to communism and other concessions which the Highlander executive council refused to supply. Highlander viewed the CIO charges as red-baiting and preferred to be known for what they were for, rather than what they were against. This tension, along with recognition of the fact that most unions were strong enough to do their own membership training, led Highlander to shift its program emphasis elsewhere. At a special executive council meeting in April 1953, it was decided to concentrate the program on the ramifications of the Supreme Court decision outlawing school segregation. This was to lead to a decade of involvement in the civil rights movement in the South.
Also in 1953, Highlander received a $44,000 grant from the Schwarzhaupt Foundation to develop a program for the training of local community leaders. This program, which was developed in both African American and Caucasian communities, reached its greatest success with the Gullah in the Sea Islands near Charleston, South Carolina. There, under the local leadership of Esau Jenkins and Highlander staff member Septima Clark, the project merged with Highlander's civil rights emphasis and developed into the citizenship program which became Highlander's main effort between approximately 1958 and 1965. In 1961, the program's direction was turned over to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and Septima Clark was transferred to their staff. This program was responsible for the enrollment of more than 50,000 registered voters. Highlander continued civil rights educational activities and worked closely with such groups as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Council of Federated Organizations (CFO). All the activities on behalf of equal civil rights for blacks led to Highlander's greatest difficulties.
Always unpopular with a large segment of the South, Highlander has experienced harassment, investigations, and actual physical attacks since its founding. In 1941, the Grundy County (Tennessee) Crusaders threatened the School with a mass march protesting it as "red"; in 1954, it was investigated by Senator James Eastland and his Internal Security Subcommittee; and in 1957, Governor Griffin of Georgia charged it as "communist training school" attended by Martin Luther King Jr. In 1959, the Legislature of the State of Tennessee investigated the School for communism; and on July 31st of that year, the State Attorney General's office conducted a raid on the School which led to charges against staffers Septima Clark, Guy Carawan, Perry Sturgis, and Brent Barksdale, and to other charges which eventually led to the School's losing its charter and having all its property confiscated by the State. Though a great blow to the School, this did not halt its integration activities. Re-chartered immediately as the Highlander Research and Education Center, the School rented quarters in Knoxville, put out an appeal for emergency financing, and continued its program largely as planned.
Beginning in 1965, Highlander's program moved on to a third cause: ending the exploitation of the impoverished Appalachia population. In de-emphasizing civil rights activities, Highlander recognized the growth of black power sentiments, the degree of federal government involvement in civil rights, and the organized existence of a variety of civil rights groups. Horton contended that Highlander was most effective when on the "cutting edge" of a new idea rather than when continuing in established programs. And so, never really comfortable in its urban setting, Highlander in both program and locale returned to the mountains of Tennessee.
The Appalachian program focused on a range of contemporary problems including strip mining, poverty, misuse of land and other natural resources, and a lack of political organization. The educational method remained the same as always: residential workshops where informal group discussions emphasize the ideas and experiences of the participants, rather than formal classes or official teachers.
In 1973, with the retirement of Myles Horton as educational director, Highlander reached another landmark. Mike Clark, a Highlander staff member, was put in charge of both administration and education (1973-1984). Highlander was able to survive as an institution rather than as one man's project. Horton remained at Highlander to do work on special projects and to participate in workshops when possible. Myles Horton passed away in 1990.
In the 1980s and 1990s Highlander broadened its base to include: environmentalism on local, national and international levels; the struggle against negative effects of globalization; grassroots leadership development in under-resourced communities; and LBGT (Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and Transgender) issues on national and international levels.
In the 21st century Highlander continues to focus on under-resourced and under-represented groups focusing on the issues of democratic participation and economic justice, with particular focus on youth, immigrants to the United States from Latin America, African Americans, the LBGT community, and the poor in general.
More information on the Highlander Research and Education Center can be found on their website.
