The article is based on activist research working in an anti-deportation social movement, and on sixteen interviews with both experienced and less experienced activists between 2009 and 2011. The anti deportation social movement made up of a range of organisations, is identified as a left social movement situated in an historic producer proletarian culture of manual work in coal and steel. South Yorkshire, a heartland of twentieth century social democracy, developed a tradition of workers' popular adult education integrated with a range of left social movements. Popular adult education institutions emerged post 1945 which "educated" a wide range of labour movement organisers--politicians, union officers and leaders. The institutions were often formed out of popular adult education initiatives by students of past programmes and staff who were themselves politicians, trade union advisers and activists in left social movements. South Yorkshire was de-industrialised in the 1980s and 1990s and since 2000 has become a destination for refugees, and migrant workers from Central Europe. The anti-deportation social movement is based on experienced activists drawing on the experience and values of a "society of purpose" in South Yorkshire and expressing a "politics of outrage". The organisations within the social movement exploit what remains of the popular adult education traditions but also deploy a range of antiracist and political education methods. Asylum seekers and refugee activists involved in the movement pursue "really useful knowledge" for personal, political and collective liberation. The article sheds light on the interrelationships between organising and educating, and the importance of re-historicising and politicising social movement theories. (Contains 6 notes.)