Day 2

Day Two:
New Market, TN – Knoxville, TN – Nashville, TN


• We wind our way up the hillside of East Tennessee to the Highlander Research and Education Center (formerly the Highlander Folk School). We learn about Highlander’s place within the Civil Rights movement and also about its long-standing mission to bring together communities of people to learn from each other to effectively organize for social justice. Highlander epitomizes the grassroots strategy of organizing, stressing non-hierarchical roles, equally valuing everyone’s knowledge, and situating knowledge within communities. We also learned about Highlander’s more recent work, including its current concentration on issues of language and immigration. The activist/educator who spoke with us left us all with the question to ponder concerning the greatest areas that we see as in need of social change and organizing to make that change occur today.


• We meet Cynthia Fleming at the historically Black Knoxville College in Knoxville, TN. Cynthia gives us a history of KC, its situation within the larger Knoxville community (particularly concerning its relationship with the nearby University of Tennessee), and a broader history of the role of Black institutions in the Civil Rights movement. A KC alumna herself, she also spoke about her days at the college during Black Power, and the tensions and problems she encountered as a woman within the Black Power movement.

Miles traveled today: 250
To date: 650