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How'd they manage to leave out the fact that the Highlander School was founded by, among others, Don West, the district director for the North Carolina Communist Party?

This according to the FBI Freedom of Information Act: http://foia.fbi.gov/hfschool.htm

Also left out is the fact that Hunter Jack was a communist and the Communist Party USA had been instructed by the Communist International to penetrate the NAACP, Democrat Party, and the Catholic Church.

Since Communists attached themselves to all sorts of LEGITIMATE organizations, the bottom-line question becomes this:

Was the Communist Party able to control the activities, policies and programs of the Highlander Folk School?

The answer, according to the FBI file on Highlander, is NO!

There is one typographical error and two factual errors in the summary appearing on the FBI webpage that you cited.

The typo is in the name of the Director of HFS which was MYLES HORTON (not Miles Norton)

The factual errors are as follows:

1. DON WEST
Don West was not the "District Director of the
Communist Party of North Carolina" when he was
associated with HFS.

Horton met Don West in the Fall of 1932 and they
worked together on plans for opening Highlander on
November 1, 1932. By April 1933, West and Horton
had a falling out over staff hiring, student
admissions and use of HFS funds so they dissolved
their partnership. While West was never a member
of the Communist Party, he was a socialist and he was
sympathetic to several Communist causes during the
1930's---during the height of the "united front"
efforts by Communists to build alliances with liberals
and socialists.

2. WHY HIGHLANDER WAS CLOSED

As the FBI file makes clear, numerous charges were
made over the years about the supposed pro-Communist
nature of Highlander but those charges were based
upon the premise that being pro-integration was, by
definition, pro-Communist activity. In addition,
Highlander's pro-labor union positions antagonized
many prominent leaders in the Tennessee business
community.

No federal agency ever cited Highlander as
"subversive" and that includes FBI, HUAC, SISS,
the Subversive Activities Control Board, and the
Attorney General's list of Subversive Organizations.

The school ultimately was closed in November 1959
due to violations of its Charter with respect to
accounting practices and allegations that it
illegally stored and sold alcoholic beverages
(a raid had found 30 cases of empty beer bottles
and several bottles of whiskey).

Myths of Martin Luther King - King’s sympathy for communism may have contributed to his opposition to the Vietnam War, which he characterized as a racist, imperialistic, and unjust war. King claimed that America "had committed more war crimes than any nation in the world."