Images of the Highlander Folk School

Images of the Highlander Folk School. "...The Highlander Folk School, and later the Highlander Research and Education Center, began in the 1930s as a social leadership center focused on labor organization in Monteagle, Tennessee. In 1953 Highlander shifted focus to civil rights, reflecting an underlying belief that advances in labor depended greatly on defeating segregation. The shift to civil rights attracted activists like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, and provoked a backlash among white supremacists that earned the school a reputation as a communist breeding ground. The distinguished and tumultuous history of the Highlander Folk School is the subject of this month's featured gallery from Wisconsin Historical Images, the Society's online image database."