1959 Highlander Way · New Market, TN 37820 · phone: (865) 933-3443 · fax: (865) 933-3424
e-mail: hrec@highlandercenter.org

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The Highlander Center works with people struggling against oppression, supporting their effort to take collective action to shape their own destiny. It creates educational experiences that empower people to take democratic leadership towards fundamental change.

Highlander works with community groups primarily in Appalachia and the deep South. Because we are located in the poorest region of the world's richest and most powerful nation, we work with people who benefit least from our society as it is now structured. Because we function in a racist society, as well as one suffering from discrimination based on gender, class, sexual orientation, age, and physical abilities, we actively promote equity in our society. We also maintain exchanges and linkages with national and international groups because we recognize the global dimension of economic and political justice and the need for multiregional and multicultural movements for positive social change.

We bring people together to learn from each other. By sharing experience, we realize that we are not alone. We face common problems caused by injustice. By affirming our cultural and racial diversity, we overcome differences that divide us. Together we develop the resources for collective action. By connecting communities and groups regionally, we are working to change unjust structures and to build a genuine political and economic democracy.

We accomplish our purposes in a variety of ways.

• Residential workshops and educational training sessions at our center in New Market, Tennessee, bring together representatives of communities facing specific struggles throughout the region.
• Our library and audiovisual resource center are available to individuals and groups wanting information about Highlander's history or about current social change issues and strategies.
• Through our participatory research and cultural program, we affirm and document the knowledge, concerns, and struggles of the people with whom we work.
• Highlander staff members also develop and conduct workshops across the region, link communities grappling with common issues, and provide other education assistance in the field.
• Finally, through its youth, internship and other programs, Highlander develops leadership within communities so that those who participate go on to share with others and to multiply what they have learned.

If real democracy is to be achieved, it will start with grassroots action. As diverse people respond to local circumstances, they must build broader movements which confront and change the policies and structures which dominate our lives. The power of the Highlander experience is the strength that grows within the souls of people, working together, as they analyze and confirm their own experiences and draw upon their understanding to contribute to fundamental change.

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