![]() ![]() Highlander’s first major projects focused on literacy and labor. A few years after returning home, Horton partnered with West and Dombrowski to create Highlander. In 1920, Horton traveled to Denmark to observe that country’s famous folk schools, which combined practical skills training with a curriculum focused on community, tolerance, and global awareness. He worked and received his education while being involved in labor struggles. Myles Horton, often credited as the founder, was born in 1905 in Savannah, Tennessee to lower-class parents who were involved in labor struggles against mainly mining companies. In 1932, Myles Horton, Don West, and Jim Dombrowski founded the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee as a center for education and labor organizing. Nearly 87 years ago, the project began simply as a space for finding community and justice. ![]() Taking on the issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality, the Highlander School was formative for many American activists such as Rosa Parks and Merlin Bishop. If any one place can claim to be the birthplace of the progressive movement in Appalachia, it’s the Highlander Folk School in east Tennessee. ![]()
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