Highlander Research & Education Center

Highlander Research and Education’s mission is to serve as a catalyst for grassroots organizing and movement-building in Appalachia and the South. Through popular education, participatory research, and cultural work, we help create spaces -- at our center and in local communities -- where people gain knowledge, hope and courage, expanding their ideas of what is possible.

We develop leadership and help create and support strong, democratic organizations that work for justice, equity and sustainability in their own communities and that join with others to build broad movements for social, economic and restorative environmental change. Highlander is committed to building Southern people power. We are dedicated to building local, regional, and national power from the grassroots, in order to dismantle the system that continues to oppress our people.