Highlander: No Ordinary School 1932-1962
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University of Kentucky UKnowledge Education in Appalachian Region Education 1988 Highlander: No Ordinary School 1932-1962 John M. Glen Ball State University Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Glen, John M., "Highlander: No Ordinary School 1932-1962" (1988). Education in Appalachian Region. 4. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_education_in_appalachian_region/4 HIGHLANDER This page intentionally left blank HIGHLANDER No Ordinary School JOHN M. GLEN THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Copyright O 1988 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine College, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Club, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. Editorial and Sales OSJices:Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0024 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-PublicationData Glen, John M., 1953- Highlander, no ordinary school, 1932-1962. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Highlander Folk School (Monteagle, Term.)-History. 2. Adult education-Tennessee-History. 3. Labor and laboring classes-Education-Tennessee-History. I. Title. LC5301 .M65G55 1988 374l.9768 87-33577 ISBN: 978-0-813 1-5280-6 This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. 8 Contents Acknowledgments / vii Introduction / 1 1 The Establishment of Highlander, 1927-1932 / 6 2 Early Struggles, 1932-1937 / 21 3 Building and Defending a Program, 1937-1941 / 47 4 Extension Work, 1937-1947 / 70 5 The CIO Years, 1942-1947 / 87 6 Transition Years, 1944-1953 / 107 7 From School Desegregation to Student Sit-Ins, 1953-1961 / 129 8 The Citizenship Schools, 1953-1961 / 155 9 Highlander under Attack, 1953-1962 / 173 Epilogue / 210 Appendix / 224 Notes / 226 Bibliographical Essay / 287 Index / 301 Illustrations follow page 150 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments The ten years I have spent exploring Highlander's history have been intensely personal and richly rewarding. In studying the school, I have learned much more about the South, about Appalachia, and about the possibilities and problems of radical reform. I also enjoyed the support of many people who offered advice, information, and encouragement as I wrote this book. Unfortunately, I can only thank a few of them by name here. My greatest professional debts are to two masterful historians and teachers at Vanderbilt University. Dewey W. Grantham introduced me to Highlander, directed my dissertation with skill and subtlety, and made me the beneficiary of his scholarship and his personal warmth. Paul K. Conkin insisted on precise logic and careful wording and drove me to probe the nuances and ironies of my material. Both helped turn my largely unfocused energies into the craftwork of a polished historian. Their colleagues at Vanderbilt, including Richard A. Couto of the Center for Health Services, also contributed to the development of my work. Cecilia Stiles Cornell and Charles S. Thomas patiently listened to my early ruminations. Vanderbilt's Graduate School provided two grants to finance my research during the summers of 1979 and 1980. The Department of History at Southwest Texas State University opened new doors when it hired me as a full-time faculty member in 1982. Over the next four years Everette Swinney guided me into the wonders of word processing, and Philip Scarpino and Kenneth Winkle offered especially insightful criticisms of earlier drafts at young faculty seminars. My new colleagues in the Department of History at Ball State University created a stimulating atmosphere in which to finish this book. Archivists are the lifelines between the researcher and the mounds of material confronted in their collections. My own research was greatly aided by the staff at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Karen Baumann, former staff members Sarah Cooper and Dale Treleven, and their colleagues were unfailing in their support as I plowed through the Highlander papers in the society's Social Action Collection. The Iconographic Section staff generously made available audio recordings and photographs of the school. Former South- ern Conference Educational Fund director Anne Braden graciously lifted the viii Highlander restrictions on the Carl and Anne Braden Papers. Other archival staffs were equally cooperative. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the aid I received at the Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville; the Southern Labor Ar- chives at Georgia State University; Duke University's Perkins Library; the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan; and the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, whose staff helped me secure Broadus Mitchell's kind consent to examine the Mitchell Family Papers. My account of Highlander's legal battle with the state of Tennessee was strengthened through the efforts of several people. Dean Robert W. Dubay at Bainbridge Junior College in Georgia furnished useful information regarding the Samuel Marvin Griffin Papers. Sue Bouldin Parrott and her staff at the Grundy County circuit court clerk's office in Altamont, Tennessee, were par- ticularly helpful in locating court transcripts and other legal documents, as was Tennessee state supreme court clerk Ramsey Leathers. I owe special thanks to the men and women who have been connected with Highlander itself. Initially a bit wary of an "outsider," staff members gradually came to realize that I wanted to do Highlander's history justice, and they never made any attempt to censor my findings. I am especially grateful to Sue Thrasher and former librarian Linda Selfridge, whose hospitality, friendliness, and generosity made me feel welcome at Highlander. As so many others have found, Myles Horton is a constant source of information, inspiration, and enjoyment; his eagerness to share his reminiscences about the school and his confidence in my efforts have been of incalculable value. I am indebted to former staff members Septima Clark, Michael Clark, and Tom Ludwig for talking to me about Highlander's programs and to Aleine Austin, Alice Cobb, Mary Lawrance Elkuss, Charis Horton, May Justus, Catherine Winston Male, Eva Zhitlowsky Milton, Don West, and Joanna and Emil Willimetz for sharing their perspectives on the school. I would also like to thank John Gaventa, Guy and Candie Carawan, and their colleagues on the current Highlander staff for their continued interest. An earlier version of Chapter 1 appeared in Southern Historian 7 (Spring 1986), and portions of the epilogue have been published in Border States, no. 6 (1987). I thank the editors of both journals for permission to reprint these selections. William Jerome Crouch and his staff at the University Press of Kentucky not only extended every courtesy as I labored over the revisions of this book but also conscientiously refined its style. Naturally, whatever errors and shortcom- ings the final product may possess are my own responsibility. Finally, there is a personal debt. My daughters, Amy Michelle Stinton and Lorey Julianne Stinton, may never have quite understood why I spent so much time so late at night working on a subject they have yet to understand completely. But they tolerated my moods, accepted the hours, helped select the illustrations, and showed me that there was more to life than scholarship. I hope that when they get old enough they take the time to read the book. Most of all, I want to thank my sharpest critic, my most resolute supporter, my wife, and my friend- Kathy Lea Stinton-Glen. She came late to this book and often had to suffer my obsession with it, but in her own unique way she understood. She put aside her own work to help me complete mine. For that, and for her love, I am profoundly grateful. This page intentionally left blank Introduction The name Highlander Folk School has rarely evoked a neutral response, even among southerners who have heard of it only vaguely. Several years ago a friend and I were talking with a college freshman from Sewanee, Tennessee, located about nine miles from the school's original site near Monteagle. Too young to remember the time when Highlander operated so close to his home, the student seemed puzzled as I recounted its history until I mentioned that the school had come under attack for its interracial activities. Suddenly he brightened. "Oh," he exclaimed, "you mean that Communist training school!" Other southerners have viewed Highlander much differently. Frank Adams, author of a book on the idea of Highlander, acknowledges that there is a temptation to cast the school "in a heroic mold, badgered by men with small minds and governments with mean ways." Yet Adams proclaims that his own account is "biased," for Highlander exemplified his philosophy that "education should foster individual growth and social change and nourish the fundamental value of complete personal liberty while encouraging thoughtful citizenship in