Topic summary
Highlander Folk School
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Highlander Research and Education Center.
Early years
The Highlander Folk School was originally established in Grundy County, Tennessee, on land donated by educator Lilian Wyckoff Johnson. When the school was founded in 1932, the U.S. was in the midst of the Great Depression. Workers in all parts of the country, especially in the South, were met with major resistance by employers when they tried to organize labor unions. Against that backdrop, Myles Horton, Don West, and James Dombrowski created the Highlander Folk School "to provide an educational center in the South for the training of rural and industrial leaders, and for the conservation and enrichment of the indigenous cultural values of the mountains."