2. At the heart of Highlander’s programs,
was a belief in the power of education to
change society. Through an education
based on their experiences, Highlander
hoped to empower the poor of
Appalachia and the South to take
control of their own lives and solve their
own problems.
3. Rosa Parks
Eleanor Roosevelt
Pete Seeger
Woody Guthrie
Martin Luther King Jr.
Andrew Young
Fanny Lou Hamer
People from the surrounding
community used the school as well; all
gathered there to give voice to the
obstacles to their hopes and dreams,
gather the conceptual, human, and
material resources needed to
continue, and to return home with a
plan for forward progress. The school
was under constant attack from white
supremacists, antilabor groups, and
the government.
5. Manuscripts
Highlander staff's practice of retaining a
majority of its records
Papers and audio recordings
Social Action Collection at the State
Historical Society Wisconsin
Highlander Research Education Center
Tennessee State Library and Archives
Labadie Collection University of Michigan
FBI Files
Materials used to calrify and
explain
6. Oral
Interviews
Teachers, Students and Supporters
Septima Poinsette Clark
An American educator and civil
rights activist. Clark developed
the literacy and citizenship
workshops that played an
important role in the drive for
voting rights and civil rights for
African Americans in the Civil
Rights Movement.
7. Contemporary
Sources
Books
Pamphlets
Articles
Advertising
Myles Horton’s essay, “The Community Folk
School.”
Staff Members and Sympathetic
Observers
Although overly enthusiastic about
achievements and short on analysis, these
publications constituted a valuable source
for understanding and assessing the
institution’s goals and operations.
9. Progressive
Reform
Appalachia and the South
Moving Forward
The need now is for a better, more nuanced
understanding of the course of the southern and
Appalachian labor, farm, and civil rights
movements; the individuals and institutions
involved in them over the past six decades; and
the ways in which current activists have sought to
fulfill that legacy and extend it into new fields of
citizen resistance and struggle.