Highlander

readers,

i'm gone this weekend, leaving in a matter of minutes for a conference/ 75th anniversary celebration for Myles Horton's Highlander Folk School. i'll be taking workshops on community organizing in the mountains of Tennessee, re-reading Horton's autobiography, The Long Haul (one pivotal resource in my senior project), and trying not to get bitten up by mosquitoes like i did the last time i was in TN!

so while i enjoy the company of progressive educators and social change makers, pls enjoy the inspiring words of Myles Horton, and imagine you were there with me (oh, if only i could take all of you with me...)

"education is meant to help you do something for others" (3)
"When you work toward equality, you have to devise some kind of structure in which there can be justice, but in the meantime you have to do the best you can in an unjust society. Sometimes that means that the laws you go by are moral laws instead of book laws." (7)
"you learn what you do, and not what you talk about." (16)
"i wanted action to be the main thrust, instead of just talking about future action that you don't practice." (16)
"in order to act on my beliefs i had to accept the idea of civil disobedience. i knew that i might have to violate those laws that were unjust, and i made up my mind never to do something wrong just because it was legal." (16)
"the violence of poverty destroys families, twists minds, hurts in many ways beyond the pain of hunger. there is another kind of violence that supports the violence of poverty, and that is institutionally sanctioned violence." (27)
"i couldn't be an absolute pacifist, because i thought that there might be times when it would be a lesser violence to have a revolution." (38)
"you can't use force to put ideas in people's heads. education must be nonviolent. i can't conceive of another type of education." (41)