Myles Horton

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Myles Horton (July 5, 1905, Savannah, Tennessee - January, 1990) was an American popular educator and founder of the Highlander Folk School, famous for its role in the Civil Rights Movement.

A poor white from West Tennessee, his social and political views were strongly influenced by radical social gospel theologian Reinhold Niebuhr under whom he studied at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Along with Don West, he founded the Highlander Folk School (now Highlander Research and Education Center) in his native Tennessee. The school based itself in a concept originating in Denmark: "that an oppressed people collectively hold strategies for liberation that are lost to its individuals… The Highlander School had been a haven for the South's handful of functional radicals during the thirties and the essential alma mater for the leaders of the CIO's fledgling southern organizing drives." (McWhorter)

[edit] References

• McWhorter, Diane. Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climatic Struggle of the Civil Rights Revolution. New York: Touchstone, 2001. p. 91-95.

[edit] Further Reading

• Horton, Myles, With Judith & Herbert Kohl. The Long Haul: An Autobiography. New York: Teachers College Press, 1998.