1959

January–March

 * March 11, 1959

HIGHLANDER'S WOES BEGIN

Rep. Shelby Rhinehart knows a subversive when he sees one. At the Highlander Folk School, outside Monteagle, he sees plenty.

On its board are such renowned communists as Eleanor Roosevelt and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. Then there's Rosa Parks, who was an unknown seamstress at a Montgomery department store when she first visited Highlander. And the rabble-rousing preacher from Alabama, M.L. King, a regular visitor.

Today Rhinehart initiates a legislative investigation of "subversive activities" at the school, where civil rights activists have been gathering for years to conduct workshops on nonviolent resistance. "The people in my area," says Rhinehart, "are happy over the investigation and hope it will serve to rid the area"-- all-white Grundy County-- "of the school."

They get their wish. A raid will later find beer on the premises. Calling Highlander an "integrated whorehouse," prosecutor Ab Sloan orders it shut down. In April 1960, as a court battle continues, Highlanders adapt an old hymn, "We Shall Overcome," for use in their protests.

The state will win its case and auction the school's property in 1961. Director Myles Horton will relocate to east Tennessee, where the school will face further harrassment for violating race codes. Arsonists will burn it down in 1963. Horton will rebuild. In 1990, at the age of 84, he will die at Highlander. The school will live on.

--by Tom Wood

Sources: Nashville Banner, 3/10-11/45; John Egerton, Shades of Gray (LSU Press, 1991); Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America During the King Years, 1954-1963 (Simon & Schuster, 1988)

(Originally published in Nashville Scene, 3/11/93)