Sandy, The letter in the 1990 book strikes my ears as Spin-to-cover-old-spin. I remember Myles' startled reaction in the early 60's when I asked him why my father wasn't mentioned in his film of the history of Highlander. His answer then was that Don had been more interested in Georgia. That didn't explain why there was no mention. In the years that followed Myles developed other explanations, for he & my father were thrown together in public forums. From a 1975 interview with my father: Don West: I came back (from Denmark) in 1931 and I taught over at Hindman Settlement School at Hindman, Kentucky on Troublesome Creek. My wife and I were teachers there - the first teaching we ever did...I had gotten a scholarship to go over to Denmark. When I graduated from Vanderbilt, I was interested in starting a folk school...The secretary of the Congregational Church in the South was...Fred Ensminger...I had become ordained...as a Congregational minister. Fred knew about my interest in folk schools. He told me that up at Monteagle on the Cumberland Mountain was an old lady, Dr. Lillian Johnson, who had a farm. She had been trying to do a community job and she was old and he thought she wanted to retire and might be willing to turn that farm over to me for a folk school. It had some buildings and nice things. He wanted to take me up there to meet her. He and I went up together and we talked to Dr. Johnson and she agreed that she was unable to carry on what she wanted to do. She wanted to retire and she'd turn the farm over to me for the school I wanted to start...She was wiling to give us a deed and she eventually did. We just got the agreement on the first meeting. After I finished at Vanderbilt, we went up to Monteagle and started the program of the Highlander Folk School... We were talking one evening about what we were going to call it and my wife, Connie, suggested, "Why don't we call it Highlander?" It was high there and we were conscious of the Highland Scots...My wife is the one who chose the name. Along about that time, there was a conference over at Blue Ridge, North Carolina, a YMCA conference. I went over. I was speaking and participating in it. While I was at the conference, I had a call from Asheville, North Carolina. He said, 'This is Myles Horton. I hear you are starting a folk school and I'm looking around for a place in North Carolina to start a school myself. I'd like to meet you.' So he came over and we talked. After I finished the conference, he asked if I'd be willing to go with him to look in North Carolina for a site that he might start on. We spent two ro three days riding around. He had gone to Union Theological Seminary...in New York. I had gone to Vanderbilt. He had friends, a couple of girls with him riding around in the car, trying to find a place. We didn't find anything that was suitable so I inveited him to come over and see our place. He looked around and he liked it and he said, 'What about coming in as your partner here at this place?' So I said, 'OK'... We were just getting started. Interviewer (Alexander Baskin): But actually you were the innovator and the founder and you were the person who made the connection with getting the property. Don West: Oh yes, absolutely. Baskin: Had Horton had any experience with the Danish folk school at this point? Don West: He had been to Denmark also...We had not met, but we had both been to Denmark and we had been both wanting to do the same thing...(It was) A common interest. So we began and the first year we didn't have too much activity. ...We put on the first letterhead that the purpose of Highlander was to educate rural and industrial leaders for a new social order. that's a quote on our letterhead. Myles Horton and Don West, co-directors of the school. I had classes out at Gruetli and Palmer and Tracy City...We had classes around in the community. The first year we didn't have an influx of students. Well, Highlander never has had an influx of students...It's developed as a conference type of thing - weekeend and weeks workshops... So we started there at Highlander and after about a year had passed, I read a story, an article, in a paper about a young black man being arrested in Atlanta. His name was Angelo Herndon. He had been a leader of the unemployed there. That was in the Depression when a lot of people were out of work. The mayor of Atlanta had made the statement that, 'Nobody in Atlanta is hungry. If they are, come up and tell me about it.' So Herndon had gotten together about 2,000 black and white hungry people and they'd marched up to the governor's office to tell him about it. He was arrested and charaged with inciting insurrection. I believe, under an old pre-Civil War law...He was charged with conspiring Baskin: But there was no destruction of property and no physical injury? Don West: No, not at all. So he was arrested and put in Fulton Tower, that was the famous jail there in Atlanta., He was eventually sentenced to 20 years on the Georgia chain gang for his action there. He spent some two years in jail before we were able to get him out. I went down to Atlanta when I heard about Herndon. Baskin: When you read about this case, you were still at Highlander Folk School. You left Highlander to come to Atlanta? Don West: I hitchhiked from Highlander down to Atlanta on the week-end to see what I could find out about it. I was curious...I went on an exploratory trip. I went into a little hole-in-the-wall office. It was the Herndon defense committee. I introduced myself, told them whee I was from, that I was a native of Georgia and I was interestedin what I had heard about Herndon and what about it. ' They said, "We have a meeting coming up here tonight in the Royal Theatre.' It was a black theatre. 'Would you be willing to be chairman of the meeting and make a talk?' Baskin: You walked in and suddenly you were thrust into the position of chairman? Don West: That was it. They didn't have many native white people at all...They had black people. They were sort of impressed that here was a native white man that might be interested. So I went in and I made th talk, chaired the meeting. From what I knew about the situation, it was a total miscarriage of justice and I expressed myself accordingly. Of course, then I was a 'Red.' I found out that - I met Benjamin Davis. He was a Communist. Baskin: Who was later a Communist Party councilman in New York. Don West: That's right, in New York City. And he was a defense attorney...After that weekend down there, seeing what I did, they asked me during the weekend, 'We need very badly to have somebody that knows the people, somebody that is a native here, somebody that might reach the white people as well as the black people a little bit.' They impressed on me the importance of my becoming a part of the defense for Herndon. Baskin: Was the NAACP involved in this case... Don West: Very minor. The International Labor Defense was the main defense there. What we did in Atlanta wasa to organize local support as much as we could, to get local sentiment and local support, financial as well as moral support...eventually the United States Supreme Court declared the Georgia law under which he had been convicted unconstitutional... Baskin: So it took two years to generate through the courts and up to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court acted favorable in terms of Herndon and he was released. Was that the end of the case? Don West:.. Well, yes, as far as the case was concerned. I saw Herndon several times after he was released. He was later in Chicago running a little book store... He wrote a book called 'Let Me Live'...It's a story of his case and his background.. (Hedy: I break off here. The interview is much much longer.)