The Highlander Folk School

The Highlander Folk School PDF Author: Aimee Isgrig Horton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Book Description
This book reviews the history of the Highlander Folk School (Summerfield, Tennessee) and describes school programs that were developed to support Black and White southerners involved in social change. The Highlander Folk School was a small, residential adult education institution founded in 1932. The first section of the book provides background information on Myles Horton, the founder of the school, and on circumstances that led him to establish the school. Horton's experience growing up in the South, as well as his educational experience as a sociology and theology student, served to strengthen his dedication to democratic social change through education. The next four sections of the book describe the programs developed during the school's 30-year history, including educational programs for the unemployed and impoverished residents of Cumberland Mountain during the Great Depression; for new leaders in the southern industrial union movement during its critical period; for groups of small farmers when the National Farmers Union sought to organize in the South; and for adult and student leadership in the emerging civil rights movement. Horton's pragmatic leadership allowed educational programs to evolve in order to meet community needs. For example, Highlander's civil rights programs began with a workshop on school desegregation and evolved more broadly to prepare volunteers from civil rights groups to teach "citizenship schools," where Blacks could learn basic literacy skills needed to pass voter registration tests. Beginning in 1958, and until the school's charter was revoked and its property confiscated by the State of Tennessee in 1961, the school was under mounting attacks by highly-placed government leaders and others because of its support of the growing civil rights movement. Contains 270 references, chapter notes, and an index. (LP)

Highlander

Highlander PDF Author: John M. Glen
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813163250
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Book Description
and racial justice during a critical era in southern and Appalachian history. This volume is the first comprehensive examination of that extraordinary -- and often controversial -- institution. Founded in 1932 by Myles Horton and Don West near Monteagle, Tennessee, this adult education center was both a vital resource for southern radicals and a catalyst for several major movements for social change. During its thirty-year history it served as a community folk school, as a training center for southern labor and Farmers' Union members, and as a meeting place for black and white civil rights activists. As a result of the civil rights involvement, the state of Tennessee revoked the charter of the original institution in 1962. At the heart of Horton's philosophy and the Highlander program was a belief in the power of education to effect profound changes in society. By working with the knowledge the poor of Appalachia and the South had gained from their experiences, Horton and his staff expected to enable them to take control of their own lives and to solve their own problems. John M. Glen's authoritative study is more than the story of a singular school in Tennessee. It is a biography of Myles Horton, co-founder and long-time educational director of the school, whose social theories shaped its character. It is an analysis of the application of a particular idea of adult education to the problems of the South and of Appalachia. And it affords valuable insights into the history of the southern labor and the civil rights movements and of the individuals and institutions involved in them over the past five decades.

A Singing Army

A Singing Army PDF Author: Kim Ruehl
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 147732156X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 318

Book Description
Zilphia Horton was a pioneer of cultural organizing, an activist and musician who taught people how to use the arts as a tool for social change, and a catalyst for anthems of empowerment such as “We Shall Overcome” and “We Shall Not Be Moved.” Her contributions to the Highlander Folk School, a pivotal center of the labor and civil rights movements in the mid-twentieth century, and her work creating the songbook of the labor movement influenced countless figures, from Woody Guthrie to Eleanor Roosevelt to Rosa Parks. Despite her outsized impact, Horton’s story is little known. A Singing Army introduces this overlooked figure to the world. Drawing on extensive archival and oral history research, as well as numerous interviews with Horton's family and friends, Kim Ruehl chronicles her life from her childhood in Arkansas coal country, through her formative travels and friendship with radical Presbyterian minister Claude C. Williams, and into her instrumental work in desegregation and fostering the music of the civil rights era. Revealing these experiences—as well as her unconventional marriage and controversial death by poisoning—A Singing Army tells the story of an all-but-forgotten woman who inspired thousands of working-class people to stand up and sing for freedom and equality.

The Long Haul

The Long Haul PDF Author: Myles Horton
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780807737002
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 231

Book Description
Myles Horton traces the history of the Highlander Folk School, exploring how the school has influenced notable figures in the civil rights movement, including Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Eleanor Roosevelt, and discusses how the school has served as a catalyst for social change.

Education in Black and White

Education in Black and White PDF Author: Stephen Preskill
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520302052
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 383

Book Description
How Myles Horton and the Highlander Folk School catalyzed social justice and democratic education For too long, the story of life-changing teacher and activist Myles Horton has escaped the public spotlight. An inspiring and humble leader whose work influenced the civil rights movement, Horton helped thousands of marginalized people gain greater control over their lives. Born and raised in early twentieth-century Tennessee, Horton was appalled by the disrespect and discrimination that was heaped on poor people—both black and white—throughout Appalachia. He resolved to create a place that would be available to all, where regular people could talk, learn from one another, and get to the heart of issues of class and race, and right and wrong. And so in 1932, Horton cofounded the Highlander Folk School, smack in the middle of Tennessee. The first biography of Myles Horton in twenty-five years, Education in Black and White focuses on the educational theories and strategies he first developed at Highlander to serve the interests of the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed. His personal vision keenly influenced everyone from Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., to Eleanor Roosevelt and Congressman John Lewis. Stephen Preskill chronicles how Horton gained influence as an advocate for organized labor, an activist for civil rights, a supporter of Appalachian self-empowerment, an architect of an international popular-education network, and a champion for direct democracy, showing how the example Horton set remains education’s best hope for today.

The Myles Horton Reader

The Myles Horton Reader PDF Author: Myles Horton
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 9781572332713
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Book Description
This book presents essays, speeches, and interviews, giving the reader a grounding in the pathbreaking work of an extraordinary man.

Unearthing Seeds of Fire

Unearthing Seeds of Fire PDF Author: Frank Adams
Publisher: John F. Blair, Publisher
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Book Description
Unearthing Seeds of Fire is a thorough historical account of Highlander Folk School and the life of its founder Myles Horton. For any involved in adult education, as well as those interested in education through social movement, this book provides rich descriptions of the ideology, context, and philosophy of creating learning communities through collectivism. Frank Adams is particularly successful at painting a vivid picture of the sociopolitical atmosphere under which Horton created Highlander, describing the successes and failures that were realized over the years, as well as the organic evolution of the school as it responded to the changing needs of its students.

We Make the Road by Walking

We Make the Road by Walking PDF Author: Myles Horton
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 9780877227755
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 302

Book Description
This dialogue between two of the most prominent thinkers on social change in the twentieth century was certainly a meeting of giants. Throughout their highly personal conversations recorded here, Horton and Freire discuss the nature of social change and empowerment and their individual literacy campaigns.

Highlander Folk School

Highlander Folk School PDF Author: Highlander Folk School (Monteagle, Tenn.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 13

Book Description


Ready from Within

Ready from Within PDF Author: Septima Poinsette Clark
Publisher: Africa Research and Publications
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 152

Book Description
Septima Clarke played one of the most essential, but little-recognized roles in the Civil Rights Movement. Born in 1898 in Charleston, South Carolina, she was a public school teacher until 1956, when she was dismissed for refusing to disavow her membership in the National Association for the advancement of Colored People. Subsequently, she worked for the Highlander Folk School, helping to set up Citizenship Schools throughout the South where Black adults could learn to read and prepare to vote. During the 1960s she worked with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was a close associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. From 1978 to 1983 she served as the first Black woman on the Charleston School Board. This is a first-person narrative of her life in the context of the Civil Rights Movement. Her story constitutes a major thread in the tapestry of that movement. Book jacket.