Certain cities immediately spring to mind when discussing the
civil rights movement – Memphis, Montgomery, Selma, Topeka and
Little Rock, to name just a few. But the role Grundy County
played in the struggle for racial equality, and specifically the
Highlander Folk School that operated in Monteagle for decades,
is often overlooked. However, there are people, including Tracy
City resident William Ray Turner, who remember it well. Turner,
a virtual one-man Grundy County historical society, has
collected thousands of photographs, newspapers, books and
artifacts he houses in a museum he’s constructed next to his
home. He credits the controversy surrounding the Highlander Folk
School with sparking his interest in history when he was still a
teenager. The Highlander Folk School was founded by Myles
Horton, Jim Dombrowski and Don West in 1932 in a building
donated to the school by Lillian Johnson, a historical
trailblazer in her own right. Johnson was the first woman to
receive a doctorate degree from Cornell Univer