Don West

Don West (1906–1992) was an American poet, educator, labor organizer, and minister who co-founded the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee with Myles Horton in 1932. West’s work connected education, labor organizing, and Appalachian cultural identity.

Core ideas

• Education and labor solidarity: West understood education as inseparable from the labor movement. He organized mining communities in Appalachia and used education as a tool for building collective power among workers.
• Cultural work as pedagogy: As a poet and folklorist, West used cultural production — poetry, storytelling, folk traditions — as a form of education and political organizing. This connects to the broader tradition of oral transmission as a mode of carrying knowledge that serves community self-determination.

Notable works

• Clods of Southern Earth (1946)
• In a Land of Plenty: A Don West Reader (2005)

Related

• Myles Horton — co-founded Highlander Folk School
• popular education — the tradition Highlander helped establish in the United States