Attending the workshop by the legendary popular education center, the Highlander Center, 'Unearthing Seeds of Fire: 75 Years of Social Change through the Story of the Highlander Center [1], I appreciated the fact that while there were over 125 people in the room, true to popular education principles, the facilitators led the workshop in participatory ways.
After singing, we participated in a large icebreaker in which each of us was handed a piece of paper describing someone who was part of Highlander history, and then mingled to teach each other what we had just learned. There wasn' t enough information on many of the pieces of paper to get much of a sense of the people (a few sentences, when a few paragraphs, which we could then summarize orally for the folks we meet, I believe, would work better).
I was particularly impressed with two stories told at the event.
The first was an account of how, during a demonstration in support of striking mill workers, in the 1930s, the marchers were fired on with a machine gun. Despite this, after initially scattering, the demonstrators, summoned back by the courage of a highlander activist who began singing in the street, reconvened to defy the violence.
Highlander' s website tells the story in more detail [2]:
"Songs were important to people as they organized during these brutal and violent times. Frank Adams in Unearthing Seeds of Fire: the Idea of Highlander quotes Zilphia Horton:
'Down in Chattanooga some clothing workers had organized and asked for recognition. The company refused and they went out on strike. They asked us to come down from Monteagle to help them with handbills and to keep the strike going. It was decided to have a Washington birthday parade since the workers felt they were striking for freedom - economic freedom.
There was a minister in the parade. A band. Children and strikers. We were marching two by two behind the band and when we marched by the mill, they opened up on us with a machinegun. Several people were hit. Highlander's librarian, Hilda Hubert, was hit in the ankle.
I looked around and the police had disappeared. There had been quite a few of them around, too. In about five minutes after the firing stopped, a few of us stood up at the mill and started singing. And in about ten minutes, people began to come out from behind the barns and little stores around there, and we stood and sang, "We Shall Not Be Moved." That's what won them recognition. That's what a song means in many places.'
Secondly, I was upset to learn that four white people copyrighted the song We Shall Overcome. I expected to hear another story of white folks expropriating the work of African-American musicians. Yet, in 1966 the four decided to assign the royalties to the anti-racist Highlander center. Today, commercial use of the song supports the We Shall Overcome Fund [3], a foundation designed to 'nurture grassroots efforts within African American communities to use art and activism against injustice.' Who were these folks? How did they get the copyright in the first place? How come they believed they had the rights to it? What kind of anti-racist commitment did they have, and/or who confronted them and convinced them to assign the royalties to Highlander? I' m curious to learn more about this chapter in anti-racist history, and the often fraught history of privileged folks attempting to ally against injustice.
Highlander will be celebrating 75 years of popular education at a gathering at the Highlander farm [4] over labor day weekend, August 31 '“ September 2, 2007.
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