Highlander Center Archives – An Update and History- An Interview with Susan Williams, coordinator of the Highlander Library/Resource Center

This article appeared in the Volume 1, Issue 2 Fall 2019 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue.

It’s a funny thing, because all of Highlander’s stuff is not in one place. Highlander’s stuff connects to lots of other people, to lots of other efforts, to other organizations. It’s kind of a curious collection. – Susan Williams, Highlander Research and Education Center

A fire destroyed the main offices of Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, TN, on March 29, 2019. According to news reports, the fire “destroyed decades of historic documents, speeches, artifacts, and memorabilia.” The Appalachian Curator contacted Highlander for a post-fire update, and spoke with Susan Williams, coordinator of the Highlander Library/Resource Center, about the history and current condition of Highlander’s archives.

Appalachian Curator: Please describe the archives and library at Highlander Center, and how things are after the March fire.

Susan Williams: The Highlander library was built in the 80s with a small archive, and this was before computers. Even then Highlander wasn’t keeping its own archives, although it did have some original materials. It was originally intended to be an Appalachian archive, which is kind of funny because it wasn’t very big. This would have been before there were so many Appalachian archives, this would have been early in the days of the Appalachian Studies Association. Part of the idea was to have social justice Appalachian materials there. It was a pretty small room and we did have some specific collections.

One thing to say about Highlander is that what we have we generate. We’re an almost 90 year old institution, and the archives we have are stuff from our work. Institutional records which include grass roots stuff from all over. We’re always generating more stuff, which eventually gets thrown away – or maybe not, or gets put in the archives. There was a small archive.

Our office burned, and in the office we had created a records room. The office had been built in the early 90s, and Highlander first came to New Market in the 70s. What had accumulated in the offices and attic were lots of records from that period. What we were in the process of doing was organizing and culling materials that were stashed everywhere. What was in the office was the results of that process. We lost a lot of organizational materials from maybe the last 40 years. We didn’t lose everything, but we lost a lot of material.

When I took over this in 2000 I was trying to figure out what we were doing, why we were doing it, and what should we do. We made some progress on internal archiving, but as all this became more complicated we realized there was no way we could do this. And then we had the fire and realized we should really not be trying to keep our original materials here. So our plan in going forward is to not be our own archive, but to have stuff placed other places. We will have a library and have books and materials related to Highlander’s work, but not be an archive.

There were organizational materials we would have kept on site, like land and building records. We were planning on moving stuff. I had told our people, “we can’t be our own archive. It’s so hard to be an archive, and we have other places that have way more resources and storage.” So it doesn’t make sense for us to be an archive. When they started the archive it was easier. You put stuff in a box, and then do a finding aid, and somebody would come by and look at it. But it’s really different now. We had already decided to move materials to the Wisconsin Historical Society, but unfortunately we hadn’t got stuff moved before the fire.

Our relationship with the Wisconsin Historical Society goes back a long time, to the 60s. They’re a major collector of Civil Rights and labor materials, and got connected to Highlander because of that. Highlander made the decision to start sending stuff there, and over the years they’ve come down and taken more material. There is material from the time period I’m talking about that is in Wisconsin already. I think it’s one of their most looked at collections at this point.

There are some anomalies. The Tennessee State Library and Archives has some collections. They have some of the state raid materials and some of the legislative harassment materials there. Appalachian State University has the Appalachian Land Ownership Reports because they were the contractor for the land study.

Steve Weiss at the Southern Folklife Collection at the University of North Carolina has helped us through the years. They have agreed to take our video collection. There is still stuff in the library, and we’re deciding what to keep and what to move elsewhere. We had talked to UNC already and were already on this track before the fire. Some of the videos are from the 70s and 80s, and we were wanting to find a way to get those digitized. There’s some interesting stuff in these films that no one’s seen for a long time.

One of our plans is to work with the archives that have materials to have more stuff digitized, then us narrate what this work is and direct people to collections. One thing I realized, and I’ve been connected to Highlander for a long time, you can send stuff to archives and they don’t know what it is. We just sent load of records that was full of acronyms, and I thought that there is something we can do to explain all this, so that people will know that this collection is important.

That’s not really documented, and that’s what I want to work on, provide some sort of narration of our history, get more materials online, and give some direction. “Why would you want to look at the Southern Appalachian Leadership Training materials? What the hell is that?” That’s part of the challenge. How do you explain a program that worked with people on environmental justice? There’s a way that we can provide some helpful explanations. That’s what I want to do.

The Highlander Research and Education Center’s annotated guide to Highlander’s archival and digital resources:

Wisconsin Historical Society- Primary Highlander Archive https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/

The majority of the Highlander archives from 1917 through 1987, as well as the papers of Myles Horton, Frank Adams, Septima Clark, and others associated with Highlander, are housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society. Microfilm of these archives is available through interlibrary loan. There are extensive finding aids for the Highlander Collections. They have digitized hundreds of photos from Highlander’s collection which date from the 1930’s to the 1960’s; these can be search in their photo gallery. They also did a project digitizing documents from the 1964 Freedom Schools and that project is available at the link below.

Photo galley:
https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS15285 – type in – Highlander folk School

1964 Freedom School Project: 
https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS15293

W.L. Eury Appalachian Center at Belk Library– Appalachian State University

Appalachian Land Ownership Reports and Files:
ASU has extensive Appalachian collections and is the repository for documents for the 1980 Appalachian Land Ownership Study, a participatory research project based at ASU and Highlander which was led by groups across six states to research corporate land ownership in many counties. These reports have now been digitized and are available. There is an overall study and then also a report for each of the states that participated, with detailed land ownership numbers.

Guide to the Appalachian Land Ownership Survey Records, 1936-1985: 
https://collections.library.appstate.edu/findingaids/ac104

Appalachian Land Ownership Task Force Records: 
http://omeka.library.appstate.edu

Appalachian Land Ownership Task Force reports: 
Alabama final report: http://omeka.library.appstate.edu/items/show/43623
Kentucky final report: http://omeka.library.appstate.edu/items/show/43625
North Carolina final report: http://omeka.library.appstate.edu/items/show/43661
Virginia final report: http://omeka.library.appstate.edu/items/show/43662
Tennessee final report: http://omeka.library.appstate.edu/items/show/43626
West Virginia final report: https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/items/show/43663

Southern Folklife Collection – UNC Chapel Hill

Highlander Center collection – Number 20361:
This finding aid links to various audio recordings from Highlander, including recordings taken from simultaneous disks. Many are songs. This finding aid includes links to audio files downloaded.
Audio Collection https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/20361/

Guy and Candie Carawan Collection, 1955-2010:
This finding aid has links to audio files that can be heard online
https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/20008/

Lucy Massie Phenix Collection – this collection has not been digitized but has hundreds of reels of audio and film material from the You Got to Move Film about Highlander, released in 1984. https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/05462/

Tennessee State Library and Archives

https://sos.tn.gov/tsla  A portion of the earlier Highlander material is housed in the Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville. Search for “Highlander” in both the “Online Content” and “Catalog” search boxes.

The Archives’ “Manuscript Collection” includes Highlander material from 1932 to 1969 (Mf#990) as well as a “Highlander Folk School Audio Collection.” The “Microform Collection” includes the Highlander FBI Files (Mf#1407).

TSLA is working on an extended Highlander Digital Resource and some materials are available now. https://cdm15138.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/search/searchterm/highlander

Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture – College of Charleston

Low Country Digital Library
This center has extensive South Carolina collections and has digitized collections related to the Citizenship Schools. These collections can be browsed at this link and include papers from Esau Jenkins, Septima Clark, and Bernice Robinson.
http://lcdl.library.cofc.edu/lcdl