Preserve Chattanooga has announced that the Highlander Folk Library in Monteagle, Tennessee, is now permanently protected through a preservation easement, ensuring that one of the nation’s most significant sites connected to the American labor and civil rights movements will be preserved for future generations.
The Highlander Folk Library is part of the historic Highlander Folk School campus, where labor organizers, educators, civil rights leaders, and grassroots activists gathered to exchange ideas, build leadership skills, and develop strategies for social change.
The building welcomed many of the movement’s most influential figures, including Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and played an important role in the early civil rights movement.
Constructed in 1949, the Highlander Folk School Library Building was once one of many buildings on the Highlander Folk School campus situated around Highlander Lake. Most buildings were destroyed or altered drastically after the school was forcibly closed in 1961…