She was a graduate of the College of the Ozarks
University of the Ozarks, where she was trained as a classical musician. After graduating, Horton was determined to use her talents for the better good of the southern working class. Her political interest was awakened by the Presbyterian minister,
Claude C. Williams, who attempted to organize her father's workers for the Progressive Miners' Union. She joined the unionization efforts despite her father's disapproval and was disowned by him as a result. Months after attending her first Highlander workshop, she married the school's founder,
Myles Horton, and began working for the Highlander Folk School. Zilphia Horton had numerous roles at Highlander Folk School, serving as music and drama director from 1938 to 1956. She enhanced the cultural pluralism of the school by developing a curriculum which incorporated and elevated the importance of folk music, dance, and drama. She directed workers'
theatre productions, junior
union camps, and various community programs; organized union locals; and led singing at workshops,
picket lines, union meetings, and fund-raising concerts. She had students collect
folk songs,
religious music, and union songs around the
South, which she then re-wrote or re-worked into protest songs to serve in political struggles, including labor movements and the
Civil rights movement. She is perhaps best known for teaching
Pete Seeger an early version of "We Shall Overcome," which would become an important civil rights anthem of the twentieth century. Other musicians credited with transforming the song are
Frank Hamilton,
Guy Carawan, Candie Carawan, and
Pete Seeger. On April 11, 1956, she died after accidentally drinking a glass of
typewriter cleaning fluid containing
carbon tetrachloride she mistook for water. == Personal life ==