The heading of this postcard states “Martin Luther King at Communist Training school.” ON BACK: “Lower left, arms folded, is Abner W. Berry of the Central Communist Party. To King’s right, Aubrey Williams, pres. of the communist front SCEF, and Myles Horton, dir. Highlander Folk School for communist training at Monteagle, Tenn. Picture taken by secret counteragent during Red Workshop in race agitation.“
The postcard is stamped with slogan “OUR BOYS ARE DYING TO FIGHT THE COMMIES, LETS START FIGHTING THEM AT HOME”
The stamp is postdated in San Diego 12/10/65 and is still intact.
The Highlander Folk School was a social justice leadership training school and cultural center founded in 1932 by activist Myles Horton, educator Don West, and Methodist minister James A. Dombrowski. It was originally located in the community Summerfield in Grundy County, Tennessee, between Monteagle and Tracy City. The school trained civil rights leader Rosa Parks prior to her historic role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, as well as providing training for many other movement activists including the members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Septima Clark, Anne Braden, Martin Luther King, Jr., James Bevel, Hollis Watkins, Bernard Lafayette, Ralph Abernathy and John Lewis in the mid- and-late 1950s. Backlash against the school’s involvement with the Civil Rights Movement led to the school’s closure by the state of Tennessee in 1961. It reorganized and moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, where it reopened, later becoming the Highlander Research and Education Center.
Civil Rights Heritage Museum Online 