Great post. I had to look this up: The Highlander Folk School, first located in Grundy County, Tennessee, at the southern tip of the Cumberland Mountains, was a meeting place of liberals from all over the South and the leading training center for southern labor and civil rights leaders for nearly three decades (1932-1961).

"Highlander provides training and education for emerging and existing movement leaders throughout the South, Appalachia, and the world. Some of Highlander's earliest contributions were during the labor movement in Appalachia and throughout the Southern United States...it played a critical role in the American Civil Rights Movement. It trained civil rights leader Rosa Parks prior to her historic role in the Montgomery bus boycott, and provided training for many other movement activists including Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) founders Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy..."

https://beta.highlandercen...