Elaine Weiss is author of "." She joins the exchange to shed light on a relatively obscure role that a mountaintop folk school played in launching hundreds of community training grounds that fueled the1950s and 60s era of the civil rights struggle by Black Americans.
Inspired by the Highlander Folk School on a mountain in Tennessee, the first Citizenship School was established by the Gullah people on the islands off South Carolina. And from that modest beginning, many hundreds of Citizenship Schools were created across 11 southern states to inform, equip and empower Black Americans to learn and courageously exercise their civil rights in the face of extraordinary hostility and violence from the law, media, education institutions, business leaders and vigilantes.
Despite systemic racism ingrained in segregationist laws, systems, public policies and private sector practices, Black Americans together with their White allies rose up and faced the violence. Many, too many, paid with their lives. And that struggle, which lasted throughout the 20th century, was passed down to the present day generations in the 21st century.
Elaine Weiss provides a factual account in a behind-the-scenes comprehensive tale of largely unknown characters who influenced the names that loom large, like Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, John Lewis, Diane Nash, Ella Baker and many others.
The Civil Rights anthem, "We Shall Overcome" has its origin in the Highlander Folk School, which was amplified through the hundreds of citizenship schools and events throughout the movement. This book is a must-read for every generation.
