Highlander Fire

Highlander circle of rocking chairs

"You can't padlock an idea," said Myles Horton,
     founder of Highlander School in 1932.
A place that loved the people,
     looking for the inner core,
     that fire that moves us all
     in the face of domination, injustice, white supremacy.
Here is the quiet circle of chairs,
     rocking, rocking,
     even today shouting the words
     of those who gathered here-
Rosa Parks, Pete Seeger, Septima Clark, Martin King.

"Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life?"
     went the old Sea Island song.
Singing!  To unite our spirits, to strengthen us,
     to make our vision clear.
Learning to connect ourselves, to organize,
     teaching literacy in the far reaches of the land,
     voting rights, equality, how it feels to be free.
Not long ago, March 29th, a fire
     burned down the front office,
     White Power signs painted on the ground.

This is not the first time, and won't be the last-
     but who has the fire, really?
Vicious liars who hate,
     or those who carry the fire within,
     burning, burning
     with the desire for us all to be free?

Annelinde Metzner
June 20, 2019

      On March 29, 2019, White Supremacists burned the main building of Highlander Center, New Market, Tennessee. 
     I took a workshop at Highlander Center in August of 2006 and was agog at the famed circle of rocking chairs where many plans of the civil rights movement were first envisioned.
Trainings were done, hearts were strengthened, and this still goes on today.
     May Highlander continue to help us all, as it has for almost a century!

Housing the circle of chairs

Mural on the main building

 

Highlander Fire, March 29, 2019

Civil Rights class

Circle with Guy and Candy Carawan, song collectors