Highlander started out in the 1930s in labor organizing. In the 1940s, it refused to offer events that were not integrated. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was central to civil rights organizing. Emmett Till's mother Mamie came here. Dr. King first met Pete Seeger here. Rosa Parks was on a retreat here just before the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
It's a magical place. Mrs. Parks woke up her first morning at Highlander and found, to her amazement, that white women were cooking her breakfast. (It was bacon.)
How many places do you know where you could wake up in the morning and pretty much be assured that you could change the world? 
3 comments:
Nice images and thoughtful post. I have been up that way, once long ago for a conference.
Is this orange as in "TN orange?"
Thanks Vickie -- orange sure was all over the Knoxville area but the orange here is fur on an ornery little cat!
I had no idea about the Highlander Center. What a lovely image--someone cooking Rosa Parks breakfast, for once, instead of the other way around. Could that have been where she tried out the idea that she deserved a seat in the front of the bus? Lovely thought.
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