Myles Horton

Year Published:  1990
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX3848

Obituary.

Abstract: 
Myles Horton, a civil rights activist who founded the Highlander Folk School, one of the most influential training grounds for the U.S. labour and civil rights movements, died in January 1990 at the age of 84. The school was attacked by its opponents as being a "finishing school for communists", producing students and ideas which spread like "a cancerous growth" throughout the U.S. South. The State of Tennessee raided and padlocked the centre in 1959, but it was re-opened and still continues today as the Highlander Research and Education Center. According to Horton, "if you want to change people's ideas, you shouldn't try to convince them intellectually. What you need to do is get them into a situation where they'll have to act on ideas, not just argue about them." (For more of Myles Horton's reflections, see elsewhere in this issue of the Connexions Digest.)