Parker, Franklin Dallas, 1918-....

Collection documents the life of Myles Horton (1905 - 1990) founder of Highlander Folk School.

He was inspired by Danish folk high schools while studing in Denmark. He and Don West founded the Highlander Folk School in Grundy County, Monteagle, Tenn., in 1932. The Highlander school which used education to inspire and empower ordinary people in the struggle for human rights and social justice. The school helped unionize southern textile workers and coal miners in the 1930s and1940s, advance civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s, and change attitudes toward racial injustice and socio-economic equity. Highlander school and Myles Horton were seen as too radical and controversial. In 1961, the state of Tennessee closed the school, revoked its charter, and sold off the assets. Myles Horton redesignated the folk school as Highlander Research and Education Center under a new charter and moved to Knoxville, then New Market, Tenn. In 1935, Horton married Zilphia Johnson (a musician and social activist) and they had two childern.

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