Date of Award

Summer 2025

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

History

First Advisor

Patricia Sullivan

Abstract

A sanctuary for political democracy, the Highlander Folk School was established in 1932 as a center for community activism, serving as the leading labor union organizing site in rural Tennessee during the Great Depression. With social unrest swelling in the 1930s, Highlander empowered workers, equipping them with the skills and knowledge needed to demand improved conditions and union representation across the anti-labor South. During World War II, however, as ranks of organized labor grew and civil rights activism in the South accelerated, Highlander convened interracial workshops, beginning in 1944, at a time when racial segregation was enforced by law and custom. Thus, when Cold War politics undermined progressive labor organizing, Highlander pivoted to support activists on the front lines of racial equality and voting rights efforts, bringing together Black and white southerners to confront entrenched racism. Even as massive resistance grew, the school persevered as an interracial educational oasis that sponsored citizenship schools and desegregation workshops in the 1950s. Influenced by southern progressive politics, the labor school turned civil rights center contributed to the efforts that helped dismantle Jim Crow while confronting oppressive southern conventions by providing training and support to many political leaders, including Betty Friedan, Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and countless others. By forming resilient networks that actively challenged regional injustices, Highlander supported efforts to rebuke systemic economic, social, and racial disparities in the South, helping advance a political democracy across a thirty-year period.

Rights

© 2025, Alexandra Elizabeth Bethlenfalvy

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