Highlander Folk School: Communist Training School, Monteagle, Tenn

Atlanta: Georgia Commission on Education, [1957]. First Edition. Bifolium (37cm); single offset printed sheet (measuring 22.5" x 14.5"), folded once to create a 4pp tabloid. A few old folds smoothed out, hint of toning along spine-fold, else Very Good+ to Near Fine. A tabloid intended to warn citizens about the seditious intentions of the board and faculty of the Highlander Folk School, founded by Don West and Myles Horton in 1932 as a training facility for southern labor union organizers and civil rights workers. This poster-sized brochure is printed and illustrated on both sides, with the recto opening to a large photomontage of supposed "communist training activities" at the school during Labor Day weekend, 1957. These include an address by Martin Luther King; visits by Rosa Parks and Rev. Ralph Abernathy; a performance by Pete Seeger; and a large central image of an African-American man hugging and kissing an older white woman on the lips - clearly intended to arouse outrage among segregation-minded citizens in Tennessee and North Georgia. Verso lists the communist affiliations of the school's faculty and board, and urges citizens to "...learn more of Communist infiltration and the direction of Communist movements. Only through information and knowledge can we combat this alien menace to Constitutional government." Signed in print by segregationist Georgia Governor Marvin Griffin. A noteworthy and uncommon piece of anti-civil rights propaganda. OCLC notes 6 holdings in the US (Arkansas State, UC Davis, Emory, Vanderbilt, Duke, Wisconsin Historical).