Founded 1932
New Market, Tennessee

Training center for social justice activists

The Highlander Research and Education Center—formerly called the Highlander Folk School—is a community adult education center nestled in the mountains east of Knoxville, Tennessee. Highlander serves as a training facility for activist organizations and labor unions and promotes civil rights and environmental protection.

The Highlander Center was founded in 1932 by Myles Horton (1905–1990; see box in Paulo Freire entry), an educator, and civil rights and labor activist. Horton, who directed the center for nearly sixty years, held the philosophy that every individual possesses the power to improve his or her own conditions and make the world a better place for all.

Highlander was racially integrated from its inception, making it a one-of-a-kind institution in the pre-civil rights era American South. Because Highlander defied Jim Crow laws...