Myles HortonHighlander Folk School

“The Radical Hillbilly”

“To get something like this going in the first place you have to have a goal. That goal shouldn't be one that inhibits the people you're working with, but it should be beyond the goal you expect them to strive for. If your goal isn't way out there somewhere and isn't challenging and daring enough, then it is going to get in your way and it will also stand in the way of other people. Since my goal happened to be a goal of having a revolutionary change in this country and all over the world, its unlikely to get in the way in the near future.” – Myles Horton

Early LifeBorn on July 9, 1905 in Savannah, Tennessee."We didn't think of ourselves as working-class, or poor, we just thought of ourselves as being conventional people who didn't have any money.” His parents taught him to serve his fellow men, and his way of doing that was education.He left home to attend high school, and he worked in a saw mill to support himself.Myles Horton learned a lot from the places he worked, and opposition to the workers he worked with regarding education and leadership."I guess I got as much help from the opposition in firming up my beliefs as I did from more positive sources”

Beginning of Education for Myles Horton

He led a student movement against hazing by fraternities at Cumberland College in 1924. 1927 he taught Sunday School at a Presbyterian Church.Here he learned that he wanted to open his own school.

In 1928 he started organizing interracial meetings for a YMCAAttended Union Theological Seminary and the University of Chicago.This schooling led him to the folk school movement in Denmark before he came back to Tennessee to open his school.

Highlander Folk SchoolFounded in 1932 in Monteagle, Tennessee.Modeled after the Denmark folk school movement.

These schools encouraged students to broaden their experience by asking questions.Then they would actively participate in finding answers.

Highlander was very controversial when it was opened.Horton taught leadership skills to blacks and whites in the heart of the South.This went against many segregation and Jim Crow laws. He encouraged them to challenge the structures of the segregated society.

A Cultural RevolutionMyles Horton worked closely with labor unions, antipoverty organizations and civil rights leaders.

Credited with being part of the urge towards the Civil Rights Movements.

Rosa Parks, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Eleanor Roosevelt, Woodie Guthrie, and Pete Seeger all were involved with the school.

Education at HighlanderMyles Horton believed he was training leaders.He was teaching because he believed that, “education leads to action.”Students lived and worked together because it was believed that learning from others would make people more powerful and capable in life and in work.These students were from all sorts of backgrounds.The school was looked at as a communist training ground from the outside public.

Education at Highlander1930’s and 1940’s

Taught about work place contributions for students. Helped to unionize timber, mining, and textile businesses.Worked alongside Congress of Industrial OrganizationsWorked to bring workers together and remove the barriers between them.

1950’sStarted more work with civil rights.Started teaching blacks to read so that they could pass the test to register to vote.Integrated story telling and singing into their education process.Helped launch “Citizenship Schools” that taught African-Americans to read.Helped with organized Civil Rights Movements of peace.

The End of Highlander Folk School

White supremacists, antilabor groups, and the government targeted Highlander Folk School.Myles Horton said that for forty years Highlander broke the Jim Crow Laws of segregation in Tennessee, everyday.On July 31, 1959, law enforcement arrested a group of students and shut down Highlander Folk School on the basis of integration and the teaching of communist ideas.The doors to the school were padlocked shut by the sheriff so that no one could go back in.

Response to the Closing of Highlander

Because the school’s charter was revoked, Horton had to go about getting another charter.In the mean time he turned over the Citizenship Schools to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference so that they could still function.Myles Horton got another charter in 1961and founded the Highlander Research and Education Center.With the Civil Rights Movement well on its way at this point, Myles Horton then turned his attention to the poverty, labor, and other problems facing people in Appalachia.

Myles Horton and AEMyles Horton realized the learner’s need to know

Segregation was a cultural norm that he wanted to combat.Myles Horton tried to educate to make the student more equipped for labor, have fair labor, and to promote equality in civil rights.

He showed that Adult Education was important for people of all races and backgrounds.Myles Horton was fueled on by the love for his fellow man that his parents taught him and he learned through seminary.He partnered with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to extend learning opportunities and continue the work of his school while the Highlander Folk School was shut down.

Works CitedMyles Horton (1905–1990) - School, Highlander, People, and Education - StateUniversity.com http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2072/Horton-Myles-1905-1990.html#ixzz1raYTDMSphttp://www.uawregion8.net/Activist-HOF/M-Horton.htmhttp://www3.nl.edu/academics/cas/ace/resources/myleshorton.cfm