Some of the world’s most well known civil rights leaders and fighters for social justice – such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and folk singer Pete Seeger – have visited and trained at The Highlander Research and Education Center, a 75-year-old hub for grassroots organizing and movement building. This month, aspiring activists of a new generation – students from Nashville area universities – will add their names to this legendary list.
About 30 students, including students from Vanderbilt University, American Baptist College, Tennessee State University and the University of Tennessee‘s College of Social Work, along with civil rights leader the Rev. James Lawson and award-winning author and historian John Egerton will turn a bus into a rolling classroom as they travel to the center, located near the town of New Market in East Tennessee, Feb. 22-24. Through “rolling lectures” on the bus and discussions, workshops and a hootenanny with folk musicians at the center, the students will learn about the history of the center and its relevance today.
Vanderbilt’s Office of Active Citizenship and Service, Office of the Dean of Students and Center for Ethics is sponsoring the trip.
During the bus ride, Lawson, a Distinguished University Professor at Vanderbilt, and Egerton, a prolific writer of Southern history, will talk about their personal paths to civic activism.
As a young man, Lawson studied the Gandhian movement in India and was dubbed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as “the leading nonviolence theorist in the world.” Many civil rights volunteers received training in the principles of non-violent protest under the tutelage of Lawson.
Egerton will also give a talk about the history of the center and its founder, Myles Horton.
The students will also get a chance to participate in a hootenanny with folk music artists Guy and Candie Carawan. The Carawans are noted for their participation in the civil rights movement and adaptation of the song, “We Shall Overcome,” into the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement.
In its early years, the mission of the Highlander Center was to build a progressive labor movement in the South among woodcutters, coal miners, government relief workers, textile workers and farmers in the region. The center later became involved in the Civil Rights Movement – specifically working on school desegregation and voting rights issues.
In the 1970s and 1980s the center’s focus shifted back to its roots of organizing in Appalachian communities around issues of environmental and economic justice. Today, the center’s staff continues its commitment to serving Appalachia and the South and is focusing on economic justice and democratic participation as key themes that connect diverse groups. The growing number of immigrants moving to the South has also provided a new constituency for the center.
For more information about the Highlander Research and Education Center, visit www.highlandercenter.org.
Media Contact: Princine Lewis, (615) 322-NEWS
princine.l.lewis@vanderbilt.edu