Highlander Research and Education Center records, 1917-2005.

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Highlander Research and Education Center records, 1917-2005.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/613705063

Records of the Highlander Research and Education Center, 1917-2005, an adult education center and its predecessor, the Highlander Folk School, documenting its programs and workshops including labor, civil rights, and Appalachian poverty, and the harassment of Highlander by government agencies. Files include: correspondence; minutes; annual reports; financial records; workshop materials; legal papers; play scripts and song books; clippings; speeches, writings and publications; tape recordings of meetings, interviews, addresses and speeches, workshops, etc.; and photographs of meetings, workshops and the grounds. Intended as a workers' education school and community center, the Highlander Folk School was founded in 1932 near Monteagle, Tennessee, by Myles Horton and Don West. Within a short time, however, staff and students initiated direct action through participation in a coal strike at Wilder, Tennessee. Among the early staff members were James Dombrowski, Zilla Hawes, John Thompson, Leon Wilson, Ralph Tefferteller, and Zilphia Horton. During the 1930s and 1940s Highlander organized workshops sponsored by the CIO and individual labor unions, and worked closely with the National Farmers Union and the United Packinghouse Workers of America. Following the withdrawal of CIO support in 1949 because of alleged communist influence at Highlander, the School became involved with the civil rights movement in the South. Under the leadership of Esau Jenkins and Septima Clark, Highlander developed programs for training local black community leaders. From 1958 to 1965 citizenship programs and voter registration efforts were important Highlander activities. Beginning in 1965, however, civil rights work was deemphasized, and Highlander turned to contemporary problems of Appalachia, including poverty, strip mining, misuse of land and natural resources, and a lack of political organization. The administrative files of Highlander contain records of its history and administration, such as charters and constitutions, policy statements, reports, minutes of executive council and staff meetings, memoranda, financial reports, and personnel records. Correspondence includes staff memoranda as well as letters from labor leaders, civil rights activists, former students, and friends of Highlander. The large number of correspondents who were active in other organizations indicates how widespread was Highlander's influence. A major portion of the collection consists of subject files, including correspondence, reports on workshop sessions, class materials and student projects, alumni lists and questionnaires, addresses and speeches, trial transcripts and legal papers, clippings, labor scripts, song books and sheets, field trip reports, conference programs, news releases, writings about Highlander, and writings by staff members. The majority of the subject files are also available on microfilm. Also available on microfilm are clippings about Highlander. Publications of Highlander include instructional materials, articles and speeches of Myles Horton and others, song books, the "Highlander Fling" and the "Summerfield News.". The audio recordings in the collection include: executive council meetings; letters dictated by Myles Horton; addresses and speeches; the Appalachian project; attacks on and investigations of Highlander, including the court hearings at Altamont, Tennessee; citizenship and community leadership programs; the Farmers Union; fund raising; the Harlan, Kentucky, coal strike; Koinonia Farm; labor workshops; music and poetry; recordings from the film "Highlander Story '53"; workshops; desegregation; leadership training; voter registration; and recordings relating to Highlander's 50th Anniversary. The processed portion of this collection is summarized above, dates 1917-1978, and is described in the register. Additional accessions date 1935-1999 and are described below.

41.2 c.f. (104 archives boxes),50 reels of microfilm (35 mm), and258 tape recordings; plusadditions of 96.7 c.f.,approximately 1635 tape recordings,4 disc recordings,11.0 c.f. of photographs, negatives and transparencies,403 videorecordings,29 film reels,5 drawings, and1 poster.

Wisconsin Historical Society, Newspaper Project

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 7805035

Wisconsin Historical Society, Newspaper Project

Related Entities

There are 18 Entities related to this resource.

Congress of Industrial Organizations (U.S.)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6j788vr (corporateBody)

The Committee for Industrial Organization was formed by the presidents of eight international unions in 1935. The presidents of these unions were dissatisfied with the American Federation of Labor's unwillingness to commit itself to a program of organizing industrial unions. In 1936, the A.F. of L. suspended the ten unions which proceeded to organize an independent federation, the Congress of Industrial Organizations. The CIO subsequently became the A.F. of L.'s chief rival for the leadership of...

Clark, Septima Poinsette, 1898-1987

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6d0411x (person)

Septima Poinsette Clark was born in Charleston, S.C. on 3 May 1898, the daughter of Peter Poinsette, who grew up a slave on the plantation of Joel Roberts Poinsett (with conflicting data saying he came on the ship the Wanderer), and Victoria Anderson who grew up mostly in Haiti. The family lived on Henrietta Street; Clark attended small private schools and Avery Institute, getting a teacher's certificate in 1916. Laws did not allow blacks to teach in black city schools, so Clark ta...

Highlander Research and Education Center (Knoxville, Tenn.)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6mt4jb9 (corporateBody)

Myles Horton founded the Highlander Folk School in 1932 as an adult education institution based on the principle of empowerment. Horton and other School members worked towards mobilizing labor unions in the 1930s and Citizenship Schools during the civil rights movement beginning in the late 1950s. They worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Guy and Candie Carawan, Septima Clark, and Rosa Parks, among others. In 1959, t...

Jenkins, Esau, 1910-1972

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6d9031b (person)

Esau Jenkins was born and raised on Johns Island, S.C. in 1910 and lived most of his life there. With very little formal education, he became a businessman and civil rights leader. Jenkins founded the Progressive Club in 1948, which encouraged local African Americans to register to vote, through the aid of Citizenship Schools, a topic he was educated in by his attendance at Highlander Folk Center in Tennessee. In 1959, he organized the Citizens' Committee of Charleston County dedicated to the ec...

Koinonia Farm

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6sv2w6s (corporateBody)

Thompson, John, 1907-1968

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6nc62xq (person)

Ern Malley was the pseudonym of James McAuley and Harold Stewart. Full name said to be Ernest Lalor Malley. From the description of The Ern Malley story [manuscript] : feature / by John Thompson. 1959. (The University of Queensland Library). WorldCat record id: 62548824 ...

Tefferteller, Ralph, 1910-1988.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64b58xt (person)

Horton, Zilphia, 1910-1956

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6tx4nv5 (person)

Director of Music, Highlander Folk School, Grundy County, Tennessee, 1935-1956; wife of school director Myles Horton. From the description of Zilphia Horton folk music collection, 1935-1956. (Tennessee State Library & Archives). WorldCat record id: 27089264 ...

Horton, Myles, 1905-1990

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6q248g4 (person)

Myles Horton, founder of the Highlander Folk School (Mounteagle, Tenn.) and civil rights activist. From the description of Myles Horton oral history interview, 1989 Dec. 15. (Georgia State University). WorldCat record id: 38726954 ...

Highlander Folk School (Monteagle, Tenn.)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6ng8x0r (corporateBody)

Recordings (1954-1960) of folk music and of workshops on leadership, integration and voter registration conducted by the school, including a 1956 integration workshop with comments by Rosa Parks on Martin Luther King and the Montgomery bus boycott. Included are performances by Folk School students, Zilphia Horton, Pete Seeger, Guy Carawan, Jack Elliott, Frank Hamilton, and May Justus. Also, a radio interview (ca. 1960) with Septima Clark and school founder Myles Horton. From the desc...

Wilson, Leonard U.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w60s06vf (person)

Military secretary and aide-de-camp to Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler. From the description of Papers relating to the Santiago campaign, 1898-1907 / Leonard Wilson. (Rhinelander District Library). WorldCat record id: 19732977 ...

United Packinghouse Workers of America

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6fj6mv9 (corporateBody)

Dombrowski, James A. (James Anderson), 1897-1983

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w60k2tc9 (person)

Daniel, Zilla Hawes, 1908-1992.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6w68vh2 (person)

Southern Appalachian Leadership Training.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6hb7c04 (corporateBody)

Clark, Mike.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6n326tr (person)

National Farmers' Union (U.S.)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64v09gp (corporateBody)

West, Don, 1906-1992

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6k95jb6 (person)