Myles Horton and the Highlander Folk School: Democracy Unfettered and Unfinished

The work of Myles Horton and the Highlander Folk School remains relatively unknown by many in the field of education. Horton's formal career spanned more than 50 years and his legacy continues today. From Horton’s early teens, the idea of democracy as an unfinished, lifelong process had taken hold of his heart, mind and body. Like Dewey he believed that democracy “is a growing concept that has to do with moving in a certain direction” (Horton, 1998, p.174). This presentation is an overview of the direction that Horton’s life took in his quest for democratic participation and social justice in some of the poorest regions of the United States during the Jim Crow era and to the present.