Aimee Horton
Aimee Isgrig Horton was married to Myles Horton. Born in 1922, Aimee, a native of Wisconsin, worked with World War II refugees and Illinois students fighting for Civil Rights, and she was the Executive Director of the Illinois Commission on Human Relations when she met Myles Horton and married him at Highlander in April 1961. Following the ceremony, Aimee accompanied Myles on a fundraising trip and helped strengthen Highlander’s resources at a time when legal challenges and a loss of tax-exempt status threatened its stability.
Later, Aimee worked with Highlander’s Citizenship Schools, as well as training white students at Highlander, who then moved to Biloxi, Mississippi to build support for SNCC, SCLC, and CORE during Freedom Summer, and writing The Highlander Folk School: A History of Its Major Programs, 1932-1961. And she took Highlander’s methodology of popular education with her when she returned to Chicago, founding the Lindeman Center, where the community worked together to develop grassroots solutions to its problems.[1]
Chicago DSA
In 1992 Aimee Horton was co-chair of Chicago Democratic Socialists of America.[2]