Although largely forgotten, a little-known Tennessee school once powerfully influenced the U.S. Civil Rights movement and its leaders, while preserving Southern Appalachian culture. Its inspiring impact on the lives of two participants — one Black, one white — have lessons for today, according to the author of a new book.
For Richard Dillingham in the early 1960s, economic prospects were bleak for a poor white mountaineer. Working his family’s small tobacco farm in an isolated, impoverished but spectacularly beautiful Appalachian pocket in western North Carolina, horizons seemed small.
In 1962, the draft sent Dillingham to Vietnam. He returned to farm work and digging ditches. Then, in 1973, what is today the Highlander Research and Education Center issued a life-changing invitation…