The Highlander Folk School and the Role of Education in the Long Civil Rights Movement, 1932-1984

FAIN: FEL-288252-23

Nico Isaac Slate
Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3815)

Writing a book on the Highlander Folk School’s role in the Civil Rights Movement and other social movements.

I propose to write a new history of the civil rights movement focused on the Highlander Folk School and on the relationship between education and social change. A small racially-integrated institution in the hills of Tennessee, Highlander was founded in 1932. In the 1950s and 1960s, Highlander hosted hundreds of civil rights activists, including Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, John Lewis, and Martin Luther King. At the core of my research are one hundred hours of audio recordings made of civil rights meetings at Highlander, audio recordings that have been largely overlooked by scholars and that offer a unique opportunity to listen in as civil rights activists debate goals and tactics, use role-play to practice nonviolent protest strategies, and learn from each other and from a range of guest speakers from across the country and abroad. By examining the history of Highlander, I will contribute to the scholarship on civil rights struggles and on the role of education within social movements.