A Singing Army: Zilphia Horton and the Highlander Folk School
by Kim Ruehl
Buy on AmazonZilphia Horton was a pioneer of cultural organizing, an activist and musician who taught people how to use the arts as a tool for social change, and a catalyst for anthems of empowerment such as “We Shall Overcome” and “We Shall Not Be Moved.” Her contributions to the Highlander Folk School, a pivotal center of the labor and civil rights movements in the mid-twentieth century, and her work creating the songbook of the labor movement influenced countless figures, from Woody Guthrie to Eleanor Roosevelt to Rosa Parks. Despite her outsized impact, Horton’s story is little known. A Singing Army introduces this overlooked figure to the world.…
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"Most people haven’t heard of Zilphia Horton, but the musician and activist’s influence has lasted to this day. Horton was an influential figure in the Highlander Folk School, which trained civil rights activists including John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr., and she introduced hymns like “We Shall Overcome” to the mid-20th century social justice movement. Ruehl, the former editor-in-chief of alt-country magazine No Depression, tells Horton’s life story in this exhaustively researched book – beautifully written and endlessly fascinating, it’s one of the best biographies of the year."
NPR Books We Love — 2021 · apps.npr.org