SFC Presents: Author Talk with Kim Ruehl – “A Singing Army: Zilphia Horton and the Highlander Folk School”

The Southern Folklife Collection and UNC University Libraries are excited to announce this forthcoming Author Talk featuring Kim Ruehl, Tuesday, April 18th from 12-1 EST.  Ruehl will be discussing her book  A Singing Army: Zilphia Horton and the Highlander FolkSchool, named one of NPR’s best books of 2021.

Register at go.unc.edu/Ruehl to join us for this free, virtual event.

You can read an excerpt from Ruehl’s book here, the first ever on Horton, in this piece on Country Queer: https://countryqueer.com/stories/article/book-excerpt-zilphia-horton-protest-song-pioneer/

Field Trip South has documented holdings and highlights from the Highlander Research and Education Center (#20361) many times over the years, and we invite you to explore these posts for some background on the center.

Early Protest Songs from the Highlander Research and Education Center

Phillip MacDonald’s Field Experience with the Highlander Research and Education Center Collection

The SFC is also proud to hold the Guy and Candie Carawan Collection (#20008).  In 1959, Guy Carawan succeeded Zilphia Horton as director of the music program at Highlander Folk School after Horton’s death in 1956, and both Guy and Candie were heavily involved in the School and Center.    Here are a couple of posts about their collection.

Documenting the origins of SNCC in the Guy and Candie Carawan Collection

In tribute to Guy Carawan

We look forward to seeing you on the 18th for this presentation and discussion on this pivotal figure in the Civil Rights movement, and learning more about her organizing and educating at the Highlander Folk Schoolgo.unc.edu/Ruehl

Highlander Research and Education Center Collection (20361) Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The collection includes acetate and transcription discs documenting the struggle for justice through political and social activism. Recordings of folk music, protest songs, labor songs, and African American religious songs were a large part of this movement and appear here. Acetate discs in the Highlander Collection consist of radio programs, recorded songs, and voices of leaders from the civil rights movement, including Esau Jenkins, Septima Clark, Rosa Parks, Myles Horton, and Zilphia Horton. Electrical transcription discs contain a variety of radio programs on issues related to the work at the Highlander Folk School. For more information about the Highlander Research and Education Center Collection #20361, see the finding aid, http://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/20361/ Myles Horton founded the Highlander Folk School in 1932 as an adult education institution based on the principle of empowerment. Horton and other School members worked towards mobilizing labor unions in the 1930s and Citizenship Schools during the civil rights movement beginning in the late 1950s. They worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Guy and Candie Carawan, Septima Clark, and Rosa Parks, among others. In 1959, the School was investigated for Communist activities and confiscation by the state of Tennessee. Soon after, its buildings mysteriously burned to the ground. The Highlander Folk School was re-chartered in 1971 as the Highlander Research and Education Center near Knoxville, Tenn. Copyright Notice Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Dylan Goes Electric! with Elijah Wald at the Southern Folklife Collection

30007_0518_Newport1965_program_cover_Southern Folklife Collection Festival Files_30007_The Wilson Library_UNC Chapel Hill
The Southern Folklife Collection is thrilled to welcome back Elijah Wald to discuss his new book, Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that Split the Sixties (Dey Street/Harper Collins, 2015).

In Dylan Goes Electric! Elijah Wald explores the cultural, political, and historical context of Bob Dylan‘s 1965 performance at the Newport Folk Festival. He delves deep into the folk revival and its intersections with the civil rights movement, the rise of rock, and the tensions between traditional and groundbreaking music to provide new insights into Dylan’s artistic evolution, his special affinity to blues, his complex relationship to the folk establishment and his sometime mentor Pete Seeger, and the ways he reshaped popular music forever.

20008_0172_Newport1965_schedule__002_Guy and Candie Carawan Collection_20008_Southern Folklife Collection_The Wilson Library_UNC Chapel Hill[click to enlarge]

Join us on Monday, November 16 for a book talk by Wald and view related materials from the Southern Folklife Collection, including the 1965 Newport program featured here (top and bottom) from the Southern Folklife Collection Festival Files (30007), folder 518, and the brochure and schedule from the Guy and Candie Carawan Collection (20008), folder 172 (above). The Carawans were traveling with the Moving Star Hall Singers from Johns Island, South Carolina (notice the notation on the program by Guy Carawan to make note of the Moving Star Hall Singers performance times). Even after looking at this schedule countless times, we still can’t believe that a single event could feature such a remarkable schedule of performers: Cousin Emmy, Roscoe Holcomb, Gary Davis, Lightning Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, Fannie Lou Hamer, Eck Robertson, Memphis Slim, Mississippi John Hurt, Dylan, Donovan, Pat Sky, Kweskin Jug Band, Bill Monroe, Ed Young (!), Sam and Kirk McGee with Arthur Smith (!!!), and so many more.20008_0172_Newport1965_schedule__001_Guy and Candie Carawan Collection_20008_Southern Folklife Collection_The Wilson Library_UNC Chapel Hil

[CLICK TO ENLARGE]

We’ve got much more to share with you so check back on Field Trip South and mark your calendar for November 16 at 5:30PM in The Wilson Library. Event is free and open to the public. 30007_0518_Newport1965_program_bios__Southern Folklife Collection Festival Files_30007_The Wilson Library_UNC Chapel Hill

[CLICK TO ENLARGE]