Alabama Humanities at 50
Alabama inspires what’s within us.
Concert hall, theater or gallery – whatever the venue, the arts bring out the best in all of us. In a similar way, Regions is inspired to provide personal service and to create banking products that promote financial confidence for our customers. We’ll never be on a stage, but we’re always there for you, waiting in the wings.
Regions is proud to support The Alabama Humanities Alliance.
From the executive director
Charles W. (Chuck) Holmes
“We cannot afford to drift physically, morally, or aesthetically in a world in which the current moves so rapidly, perhaps toward an abyss. Science and technology are providing us with the means to travel swiftly. But what course do we take? This is the question that no computer can answer.”
—Glenn Seaborg
Do you relate? You’re not alone.
I suspect that these words connect with just about anyone who is distracted too often by a smartphone and wary of what the age of AI will bring. To this anxiety stew, let’s add social media, social isolation, declining literacy rates, and the decline of civic engagement.
Here’s the twist. The quote above is pre-Internet, uttered some 60 years ago in testimony to a U.S. Senate committee. The speaker was Glenn Seaborg and his life’s work earned him a Nobel Prize in chemistry.
This renowned nuclear scientist was speaking in favor of the humanities and the arts. He viewed them as antidotes to threats posed then by rapid technological and social transformation during the Cold War. By engaging in literature, art, languages, history, and philosophy, Americans can more smartly cope and make better, humane decisions.
“But what course do we take?”
For 50 years, the Alabama Humanities Alliance has been charting that course. We help Alabamians tell their stories, explore their past and present, and connect with each other — human to human. This year, AHA celebrates a half-century of uplifting the humanities in Alabama.
In 1965, following the testimony of Seaborg and many others, Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill passed legislation to create the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts.
In turn, that led to the founding of the Alabama Humanities Alliance in 1974. (And humanities councils like ours in all 50 states.)
Since then, AHA has enriched the lives of countless Alabamians. As an NEH affiliate, we distribute federal grants to support storytelling projects, explorations of history,
documentary films and podcasts, and community gatherings. We operate public programs like Alabama History Day. We bring traveling Smithsonian exhibitions to the state. We help educators be better educators with training and resources.
This issue of Mosaic chronicles AHA and its history. Among many achievements over 50 years, AHA co-created the online Encyclopedia of Alabama, led Alabama’s bicentennial touring exhibitions, and supported early efforts to bring literacy and lifelong learning programs to underserved rural areas.
“This is the question that no computer can answer.”
Looking back is important. More relevant is imagining the next 50 years. You’ll find that in these pages, too.
One example — in seeking to address the divides in our state, we’ve launched the Healing History Initiative. It is a sustained, multiyear effort to create opportunities for Alabamians to talk, listen, and find humanity across their differences.
Our effort uses history and facilitated group conversations to explore what we have in common while acknowledging — with civility — what divides us.
In all that we do at AHA, there is plenty of work to be done. We cannot afford to drift.
Our ability to thrive as a state relies on our willingness to keep learning for a lifetime and to nurture a shared vision of a better Alabama — today, tomorrow, and 50 years from now.
Mosaic
Mosaic magazine is published annually by the Alabama Humanities Alliance.
Editor: Phillip Jordan
Art Director: Liz Kleber Moye
Printing: Craftsman Printing
About us
Founded in 1974, the nonprofit and nonpartisan Alabama Humanities Alliance (AHA) serves as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Through our grantmaking and public programming, we connect Alabamians to impactful storytelling and lifelong learning — and to the vibrant and complex communities we call home. We believe the humanities can bring Alabamians together and help us all see the humanity in each other. Learn more at alabamahumanities.org.
Board of directors
Chair: Ed Mizzell (Birmingham)
Vice Chair: Dorothy W. Huston, Ph.D. (Huntsville)
Secretary: Mark D. Nelson, Ph.D. (Birmingham)
Treasurer: Chandra Brown Stewart (Mobile)
Executive Committee At-Large: Robert McGhee (Atmore); Brett Shaffer (Birmingham)
Bob Barnett (Pell City)
Diane Clouse (Ozark)
Trey Granger (Montgomery)
Janice Hawkins (Troy)
Darren Hicks (Birmingham)
Elliot A. Knight, Ph.D. (Montgomery)
Clay Loftin (Montgomery)
Sheryl Threadgill-Matthews (Camden)
Susan Y. Price, J.D. (Montgomery)
Ansley Quiros, Ph.D (Florence)
Anne M. Schmidt, M.D. (Birmingham)
R.B. Walker (Birmingham)
Andy Weil (Montgomery)
Staff
Executive Director: Chuck Holmes
Director of Partnerships and Outcomes: Laura C. Anderson
Director of Administration: Alma Anthony
Director of Communications: Phillip Jordan
Program Coordinator, Alabama History Day:
Idrissa N. Snider, Ph.D.
Program Support Coordinator: Meghan McCollum
Outreach and Social Media Coordinator:
Tania De’Shawn Russell
Grants Director: Graydon Rust
In this issue
Looking Back
12 Looking Back: AHA at 50
Reflecting on our first half century
24 Alabama voices
Roy Hoffman on the power of story
Looking Forward
29 AHA honors
Profiles of our 2024 Alabama Humanities Fellows
~On Brittany Howard, by Charlotte Teague
~On Jason Isbell, by Caleb Johnson
~On Rick Bragg, by Cassandra King
~On Roy Wood Jr., by Jeffrey Melton
On the cover:
38 Humanities in everyday use
Learning from, and with, each other, by Zanice Bond
40 Etched into our being Science, the humanities, and us, by Richard Myers
44 A healing at the Forks
Exploring a painful past and new future in Florence, by Javacia Harris Bowser
62 Once the world was perfect
A poem, by Joy Harjo
7 News + Highlights
“Burst Camellia” by Nall Hollis, Alabama Humanities Fellow (2018). Courtesy International Arts Center, Troy University. Cover design by Liz Kleber Moye.
Above:
“Bibb Graves Bridge Over the Coosa River, Wetumpka, Alabama” (1931), by Will Arnold. From AHA’s 1989 In View of Home: 20th Century Visions of the Alabama Landscape , by Frances O. Robb. Courtesy Alabama Department of Archives and History.
Zanice Bond, Ph.D., is passionate about the arts and the humanities as a scholar both in and out of the classroom. She earned her Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Kansas and is an associate professor of English in the Department of Modern Languages, Communication, and Philosophy at Tuskegee University. She lives in Auburn.
Javacia Harris Bowser is an awardwinning freelance journalist and the author of the essay collection, Find Your Way Back: How to Write Your Way Through Anything. In Birmingham, she’s best known as the founder of See Jane Write, a website and community for women writers.
Joy Harjo is a poet, musician, and playwright, and a member of the Mvskoke (Creek) Nation. She served as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2019-2022 and received the Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer at the 2023 Monroeville Literary Festival.
Roy Hoffman is author of the novels The Promise of the Pelican, Come Landfall, Chicken Dreaming Corn, and Almost Family, and the nonfiction books, Alabama Afternoons and Back Home. He has written for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Mobile Press-Register, and is on the faculty of Spalding University’s Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing.
Caleb Johnson authored the novel Treeborne (Picador), which received an honorable mention for the Southern Book Prize. He grew up in Arley, Alabama, and studied journalism at the University of Alabama. His past jobs include newspaper reporter, janitor, middle-school teacher, and whole-animal butcher. He teaches creative writing at the University of South Alabama.
Cassandra King is the awardwinning author of five novels, two books of nonfiction, numerous short stories, magazine articles, and essays. A native of L.A. (Lower Alabama), she currently resides in the South Carolina Lowcountry and is at work on a new novel. She is also an Alabama Humanities Fellow (2017).
Jeffrey Melton, Ph.D., is professor of American Studies at the University of Alabama. He is author of Mark Twain, Travel Books, and Tourism (2002) and co-editor of Mark Twain on the Move: A Travel Reader (2009). Much of his writing and research focuses on American literature, humor, and satire.
Richard Myers, Ph.D., is chief scientific officer, president emeritus, and faculty investigator at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville. He is a native of Selma and a graduate of the University of Alabama. As director of Stanford University’s Human Genome Center, he worked extensively on the groundbreaking Human Genome Project.
Charlotte C. Teague, Ph.D., is associate professor and chair of English & Foreign Languages at Alabama A&M University, where she has taught for 20 years. She specializes in professional writing (creative, media, and technical) and Black women writers. She transitioned into academia after working as a project consultant and technical/ scientific writer-editor.
Contributing Artists: Erol Ahmed, Will Arnold, Katie Baldwin, Pinky/MM Bass, Chris Carmichael, Chip Cooper, Solomon Crenshaw Jr., Nall Hollis, Tori Nicole Jackson, Marla Kenney, Heather Logan, Lutisha Pettway, Alvin C. Sella, Logan Tanner, Caroline Veronez, Dave Walker.
Contributing writers and editors: Laura Anderson, Kathy Boswell, Chuck Holmes, Olivia McMurrey, Tania De’Shawn Russell.
Special thanks: Jack Geren, Maví Figueres, Wayne Flynt, Carrie Jaxon, Amy Jenkins, David Mathews, Natalie A. Mault Mead, Brian Murphy, Christine Reilly, Philip Shirley, Robert C. Stewart, Susan Willis, Odessa Woolfolk.
Contact us: 205.558.3998 ahanews@alabamahumanities.org alabamahumanities.org/mosaic-magazine
Photo: Denise Toombs
Preserving Tradition
Descended from the native peoples of the Mississippian period (AD 800-1500), our ancestors endured great hardship and discrimination after the Indian Removal Act with an indomitable spirit, nobility and grace. Our Tribe became empowered with a strong mission to provide for ourselves and the communities in which we live with a dedication to service, philanthropy and the revitalization of traditional arts and culture.
The story of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians is a true American success story—one of strength, perseverance, and prosperity.
Fifty years of sharing Alabama’s stories
Much has changed at the Alabama Humanities Alliance over the past half century. Look no further than our name, which has “evolved” four times in five decades. But as we’ve mined our archives and planned our anniversary commemorations this past year, one theme kept turning up. One through-line we can trace from Then to Now.
For fifty years, storytelling has remained at the heart of who we are and what we do. And there’s a reason for that.
When we explore the humanities — our history, literature, culture, art, and more — what we’re really doing is getting to know each other better. We’re sharing our stories, and listening to others'. We’re linking our past to the present. And we’re discovering the common ground, and the common humanity, that binds us all.
Especially now, the more we can be part of each other’s stories, the better. So, consider this your invitation. Become part of the story of the humanities in Alabama — as we celebrate this milestone and look forward.
Join in our 2024 Alabama Colloquium series
On August 26, in Huntsville, we celebrate two storytellers in song — north Alabama natives Brittany Howard and Jason Isbell. Then, come December 2, we honor a writer, Rick Bragg, and a humorist, Roy Wood Jr., who will make us laugh and think in equal measure. Learn about our 2024 Fellows starting on page 29.
Watch ‘AHA at 50’
This year, we gathered some of our longtime friends and partners from around the state for a series of roundtable conversations. We wanted to hear what impact they’ve seen the humanities make in our state. And where they hope the humanities can help lead us from here. Watch at alabamahumanities.org/aha-at-50.
Share your ‘My Alabama Story’
We’ve been enlisting some of Alabama’s most compelling writers, artists, and thinkers to reflect on their connections to this place we call home. This land, its people. Its problems. Its promise. Our past and future. The series will be published in full in 2025; in the meantime, share your story on social media with #AHAat50 and #MyAlabamaStory.
Donate toward our next fifty years
More than a time to reflect, this moment offers an opportunity to build a foundation for our work to come. All of AHA’s original programming — including this very magazine — relies on the generosity of our fellow Alabamians. Consider a gift using the reply card in this issue, or donate at alabamahumanities.org/support.
Unvanishing (2002), by Alvin C. Sella. Courtesy Alabama State Council on the Arts and the Sella family.
More: go.uab.edu/history-ma
Banner year for Alabama History Day
Our next Alabama History Day is set. Join us as a student participant, teacher, or judge on March 21, 2025, at Troy University in Montgomery.
AHA annually presents this history competition that engages students in robust and creative historical research, culminating in a statewide contest — and a chance to advance to National History Day. Our 2025 contest has plenty to build on.
In 2024, AHA organized our first-ever regional competition, in Mobile. And more student participants joined in our statewide contest than ever before. Cohort-style trainings are helping Alabama educators learn how to maximize History Day as a project-based learning tool for the classroom. And we launched a summer-long Alabama History Day program for youth at Mt. Meigs, thanks to partnerships with the Alabama Writers Forum and Alabama Department of Youth Services. All of this is made possible by state funding through the Alabama Commission on Higher Education, as well as generous support from Alabama Power and the Bezos Family Foundation.
Plus, 35 student winners from our state contest competed at National History Day this summer in Maryland and Washington, D.C. Several Alabama students — and one of their teachers — came home with national recognition.
• Kristian Pittman (Alabama School of Fine Arts, Birmingham) had his exhibit, "The Other Side of the Tracks: The Legacy of Redlining,” displayed at the National Museum of American History.
• Ethan Gwinn (Baker High, Mobile) and Ddwayne Lockett-James (Murphy High, Mobile) had their documentary screened at the National Museum of African American History and Culture: Rediscovering Roots In the Harlem Renaissance: How Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon Contributed to Clarifying African American Ancestry.
• Isaac Livingston’s research (Westminster Christian Academy, Huntsville) landed him a visit to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. There, he had the chance to meet with both U.S. Rep. Dale Strong and U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville about his project on “The Tennessee Valley Authority: A Turning Point in Southern History.”
• Nakeria Woods (Murphy High School, Mobile) and Ashton Dunklin (Clark-Shaw Magnet School, Mobile) won “Outstanding Affiliate Entry” awards.
• Kathy Paschal, a teacher at Stanhope Elmore High School in Millbrook, was a finalist for National History Day’s 2024 Patricia Behring Teacher of the Year award.
From a Crossroads to a SPARK!
Since 1997, AHA has coordinated with the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street to bring traveling exhibits to Alabama — a dozen, so far, in 60-plus communities.
In 2023-2024, we brought Crossroads to the state, exploring change in rural America over the past century. In 2025-2026, AHA has secured a new exhibit: Spark! Places of Innovation. It features stories from diverse communities across the nation that will inspire Alabamians to think about how innovation has shaped our own cities and towns — and to consider how we might each be innovators ourselves.
The exhibit will travel to six locations spanning the state: Athens, Brewton, Dothan, Fort Payne, Sylacauga, and Uniontown. Thank you to our lead sponsor, Innovate Alabama, for their support.
Stay tuned for tour dates and local programming!
Humanities highlights
Congrats, Riley Scholars!
Across 2023-2024, the Alabama Humanities Alliance named five educators as Riley Scholars. AHA’s competitive Jenice Riley Memorial Scholarship is awarded annually to K-8 educators who excel in teaching history, civics, and geography. Each Riley Scholar receives funding to support their professional development or creative classroom projects.
Supported through AHA’s W. Edgar Welden Fund for Education, this scholarship is named in memory of the late Jenice Riley — a passionate educator and daughter of former Alabama governor and first lady Bob and Patsy Riley.
Across 2023-2024, five teachers earned distinction as Riley Scholars, representing five different schools from around the state.
• Lexi Banks
Magic City Acceptance Academy, Birmingham Project: Birmingham Civil Rights Institute class trip
• Willie Davis III
Charles F. Hard Elementary, Bessemer Project: A Community of Helpers
• Abby Crews
Mulkey Elementary, Geneva Project: Living History Wax Museum
• Shatia Howard
Lakewood Elementary, Huntsville Project: Diverse Friends, Happy Hearts
• Alana McNeil
Farley Elementary, Huntsville Project: Mapping Our World
Welcome new board members
Clay Loftin, of Montgomery, is manager of governmental affairs for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama. He is responsible for legislative advocacy and healthcare policy efforts to ensure access to quality, affordable healthcare for more than 2 million Alabamians. Loftin has served on many boards, including the Girl Scouts of Southern Alabama, the Children’s Trust Fund Leadership Council, and Leadership Montgomery Torchbearers Class XIV. Raised in Prattville, Loftin graduated from Auburn University at Montgomery in 2010 with a B.A. in political science.
Ansley Quiros, Ph.D., of Florence, is an associate professor of history and chair of the Department of History at the University of North Alabama. She studies twentieth century U.S. history, with a focus on race, politics, and religion. Quiros’ award-winning first book, God With Us: Lived Theology and the Black Freedom Struggle in Americus, Georgia, 1942-1976 (UNC, 2018), examined the struggle over race and Christian theology in the civil rights struggle in Southwest Georgia. Quiros serves on the board of Common Ground Shoals and Project Threadways and, along with Brian Dempsey, Ph.D., co-directs the Civil Rights Struggle in the Shoals Project.
Abby Crews, a social studies teacher in Geneva, Alabama, celebrates her Riley Scholarship with her fifth grade class at Mulkey Elementary School.
Grantee spotlight:
News vs. Misinformation
According to recent research, the top worldwide risk over the next two years is misinformation influenced by artificial intelligence. And that’s a problem, especially in an already unprecedented election year.
To that end, one of AHA’s recent grant recipients, Alabama Media Professionals, hosted a series of public forums to highlight the importance of journalism to our democracy — and to help Alabamians identify the difference between accurate reporting and false information. During a forum at the Hoover Public Library, media scholars shared advice for how anyone can better identify misleading propaganda, while local journalists shared how they’re working to build trust and provide accurate, relevant reporting.
“It’s on us [as journalists] to focus on what’s important rather than what people want to argue about,” said Jon Anderson, editor of the Hoover Sun. “And it’s incumbent upon [our readers] to look at where a source is getting its facts. Do you trust that source? You may go look somewhere else just to double-check it with another source, maybe somebody that you don’t always agree with.”
“There’s an idea that ‘transparency is the new balance,’” added Andrew Yeager, managing editor of WBHM. “Letting people behind the curtain a little bit more to know where we got our information and how we got our information, that transparency is part of our accountability, too.”
Of course, even facts carry only so much currency in this ultrapolarized world. Sometimes, it’s more important that we, as citizens and neighbors, learn to disagree with civility and seek out common ground more often than political takedowns.
“If you’re trying to change people’s minds or change people’s leanings based on fact-checking something or debunking something that they believe is true — but isn’t — I’m not sure that’s an effective strategy,” said Matt Barnidge, Ph.D., associate professor of journalism and creative media at the University of Alabama. “I would encourage everybody to try to find points of similarity, points of connection. How can you connect with this person and bring them in to what you want to talk about, bring them to the ideas that you want them to reflect on. Over time, maybe that might move the need a little more.”
Apply for your AHA grant
The Alabama Humanities Alliance serves as the primary source of grants for public humanities projects statewide, helping nonprofits bring our state’s history, literature, and culture to life. Since our founding, that translates to more than $12.5 million in funding we’ve awarded.
All Major and Media Grant applications are evaluated by the AHA Grants Review Panel, an independent team of humanities scholars and public practitioners of the humanities who bring a diversity of perspectives, geography, and expertise. Current panelists: Matthew L. Downs, Ph.D., of Daphne; Benjamin Isaak Gross, Ph.D., of Jacksonville; Tina Naremore Jones, Ph.D., of Livingston; Charlotte C. Teague, Ph.D., of Huntsville; and Shari L. Williams, Ph.D., of Warrior Stand.
Read our Grants Roundup on page 53 and learn how AHA's most recent grantees put their funding to use.
Learn more:
Scenes from the AHA-funded "News vs. Misinformation" panel presented by Alabama Media Professionals.
Photos by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.
“Nobody should expect that a few words from a poet or a philosopher may sit right a distressing situation or provide a completely new orientation for a community. But poets and philosophers can help us find the way up the mountain. The path we take from there can be our own.”
—Duard
LeGrand, AHA founding member (Humanities Forum, 1977)
Looking back: AHA at 50
by Phillip Jordan
As 1974 dawned, Jack Geren found himself preparing for a new semester at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The 29-year-old Geren was an assistant to the dean in UAH’s School of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences — not much older than the students around him. But he had already held a few positions, inside and outside of academia, since graduating from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
One day, a colleague mentioned to Geren that some sort of new humanities organization was being formed in the state. And it needed an executive director.
Geren looked into it. He learned this wasn’t just another humanities program bound to college campuses. Far from it, in fact. This new group was intent on making the humanities relevant to the lives of everyday Alabamians and the communities where they lived. It would partner with the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to secure funding that could support humanities-rich projects around the state.
Geren was intrigued. He applied, but never expected to land an interview, much less the job. As it turns out, though, he was the man for the job. By February of 1974, letters of congratulations began arriving in Geren’s mailbox.
One came from an old history professor of his, David Mathews, Ph.D., who had just taken on a new job of his own — as president of the University of Alabama: “I think it is a venture that you will find is just your thing,” he wrote Geren, “and I wish you every success.”
David Wigdor, a program officer at the NEH, closed his note with this: “Good luck as the Alabama program zooms out of the Rodeway into high gear.”
AHA funds 13 initial grantees statewide. Five decades on, we've awarded $12.5 million to 2,182 public humanities projects — and counting.
Alabama Humanities Alliance is born… as the Alabama Committee for the Humanities and Public Policy.
Celebration of U.S. Bicentennial with resources and exhibits statewide.
First name change as the Committee for the Humanities in Alabama broadens its focus. Programs in history, literature, religious studies, and art history become more popular.
First oral history project, featuring interviews with
Tuscaloosa County senior citizens.
Geren was indeed soon on the road himself, heading south for Birmingham. His first task: Finding a home for this new enterprise, one that would initially be called the Alabama Committee for the Humanities and Public Policy.
“Apprehension, excitement, I felt both of those things,” Geren recalls now, sitting in his small home on the edge of Huntsville’s Old Town Historic District. “Certainly, excitement because the purpose was something very important to me. Apprehension because I wasn’t sure exactly how to start and sustain this idea.”
His anxiety was understandable. This was 1974. The nation’s mood was cynical, at best. The Vietnam War was ending, badly. Watergate was the word, soon to take Nixon down (and, incidentally, to propel UA’s Mathews, a founding board member of Alabama Humanities, to a cabinet position in Gerald Ford’s administration). Here in Alabama, George Wallace was governor, again. Integration remained a loaded term. And a super outbreak of tornadoes carved a path of destruction
Alabama Humanities Resource Center opens, with the Alabama Public Library System. A free Blockbuster Video of sorts, it’s filled with documentaries, recordings, photos, and more.
across north Alabama, not long after Geren headed to Birmingham.
But Geren carried something else south with him that early spring day, something that sustains the Alabama Humanities Alliance’s work fifty years later: A belief in the power of telling, and sharing, our stories with each other — a power that can help us, collectively, take on any challenges we might face in Alabama. And help us better understand each other, as well as the vibrant and complex communities we each call home.
What's in a name? That was the question in 1974.
“This was something brand new that really was intended to have a positive influence on life in every county in the state,” Geren says. “We were trying to get people to think and talk about their communities, together, with support from professors and humanities professionals around the state. It was an exciting idea and an exciting time.”
On April 9, 1974 — one year after a committee of Alabamians had first begun conversations with
Images 1980: An Exhibition of Alabama Women Artists, curated by Montevallo art historian Patricia A. Johnston, is one of AHA’s earliest arts + humanities grant projects.
Theatre in the Mind begins with our first NEH Exemplary Award. TIM supports preshow programs, artist talks, and more to enhance Alabama Shakespeare Festival productions.
the National Endowment for the Humanities about starting a program in Alabama — the NEH sent a letter to Governor Wallace, officially announcing this new “experimental statewide program.” The letter shared, in part, that this new Alabama-based program would “offer the public something always vitally needed in a democratic society — namely, the thoughts, ideas, and insights of philosophers, historians, and other humanists.”
From there, our predecessors hit the ground running. Geren, with his new staff and board members, crisscrossed the state, meeting citizens from all walks of life to introduce this new concept in the humanities. We dedicated most of our outreach to connecting with community cornerstones such as libraries, museums, colleges, cultural festivals, historical societies, literary groups, and more — establishing vital relationships that last to this day.
We had some headwinds to surmount. Not the least of which was defining just what the heck the humanities are. Then, as now, we’re sometimes confused with humanitarians, philanthropists, or social-service providers. Case in point: In those first few years, we received calls from folks asking to give blood, requesting help with stray dogs, and offering to donate their body to medical science.
Philip Shirley, an early staff member, remembers teaching at least 100 grant-writing workshops as part of his travels to every county in the state — and likely every public library, too. He also distinctly remembers a very early Betamax video that he and others on staff (including his future wife, Virginia Shirley) would tote to speaking engagements. Of course, that meant they also had to haul a near-industrial-grade projector along for the ride.
of To Kill A Mockingbird in Eufaula, part of our 1983 Alabama History and Heritage Festival. Courtesy Alabama Department of Archives and History. At right: One Alabama Humanities Fellow, Odessa Woolfolk (right), welcomes a new Fellow, Imani Perry, in 2023.
Alabama History and Heritage Festival features storytelling, lectures, conferences, film screenings, music, and exhibits statewide, with a closing festival at the state capitol.
1985
Religion in the South conference at BirminghamSouthern College brings theologians, historians, authors together to explore religion’s impact on Southern culture.
Second name change to Alabama Humanities Foundation
1986
Utopia in American Life and Literature (U’ALL) explores the utopian impulse in America and the Single Tax Colony in Fairhope. The statewide project earns an NEH Exemplary Award.
Eyes on the Prize debuts on PBS, the first of many AHA-funded films to make a national impact. It wins a Peabody Award, six Emmys, and a Best Documentary nom at the Academy Awards.
1987
Top: Harper Lee signs copies
“The thing I was happiest about was that our reach was extensive,” Shirley recalls. “We were able to get to all of these little communities across the state. We were on the road all the time. We would meet with mayors, librarians, community college leaders, whoever we could, just to introduce ourselves. I was proud that we were able to, pretty quickly, create widespread awareness for our grants and our humanities programs that would be useful locally.”
Odessa Woolfolk was one of the Alabama Humanities’ “early adopters.” In the mid-1970s, the revered educator — who would later become the founding president of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute — was the recently appointed director of UAB’s Center for Urban Affairs. And she was thrilled by AHA’s arrival on the scene.
“I recall the founding of the organization shortly after I began my career at UAB,” Woolfolk notes. “I was so excited that this old industrial place, my hometown, had discovered the humanities and cultural arts.”
She soon became one of AHA’s early project scholars. Through the years Woolfolk has spoken at some of our biggest events, including when we’ve honored Alabama Humanities Fellows such as Harper Lee (in 2002) and Imani Perry (in 2023), and when we hosted the acclaimed author Toni Morrison at our 1999 silver anniversary celebration.
Meanwhile, back in 1974, Jack Geren had succeeded in finding an initial headquarters for Alabama Humanities, on Birmingham-Southern College’s campus. The school provided our office rent-free as we established ourselves, and BSC would remain AHA’s home for the next three-plus decades. Its closing this year brings to mind bittersweet memories, especially for those who were there in those early years.
AHA debuts the Humanities Speakers Bureau (aka Road Scholars) as part of commemorations for the U.S. Constitution bicentennial. Today, the program remains as vibrant as ever.
In View of Home collaboration with Huntsville Museum of Art — and museums and libraries statewide — sparks a yearlong examination of Alabamians’ connection with the land.
Alabama Humanities Awards debut. Winton
“Red” Blount is the first of 55 honorees so far, including the likes of Harper Lee, Fred Gray, Wayne Flynt, Bryan Stevenson, and E.O. Wilson.
Mosaic debuts as AHA’s new newsletter, eventually evolving into the full-fledged storytelling magazine you’re holding now.
A sampling of award-winning films and series that AHA has helped fund through the years.
Of course, our own success — and lasting presence today — also was far from guaranteed. In fact, if you read that initial letter to Governor Wallace announcing our creation, you wonder if its author would have bet on a fiftieth anniversary ever arriving for our fledgling organization. The word “experiment” or “experimental” was used seven times to describe us…in a six-paragraph letter.
Still, by the summer of ’74, we had officially hung our shingle, printed the requisite brochures, and hosted a “listening tour” of public meetings in Florence, Huntsville, Anniston, Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Selma, Montgomery, Dothan, and Mobile. Thankfully, the public responded. By that fall, according to our first newsletter, we sent out our first call for grant proposals, for “projects promoting dialogue between professional humanists and the adult public about issues of importance in Alabama.”
Then, as now, all AHA grant funding comes from our affiliation with the National Endowment for the Humanities. And in those early years, we put out a theme for organizations to use in crafting their
proposals. Our first theme, in 1974, was called “Priorities and Human Values in a Changing Alabama: At City Hall, Courthouse, and Statehouse.”
That theme reveals a key difference between the Alabama Humanities of 1974 and today. As our initial name implied, a major goal was to bring the humanities to bear on public policy. It was a fairly remarkable purpose at the time. In practice, that looked like providing resources, forums, and humanities professionals (historians, scholars, writers, artists, and more) to help citizens better understand the issues affecting their towns — and why folks might see the same issues differently. In the end, we hoped, Alabamians might gain new perspective on how to approach pressing public policy issues of the day.
We funded 13 projects in that first round of grants, supporting a diverse array of projects — in places from Mobile and Huntsville to Butler and Sand Mountain. Among them, a statewide series of public forums designed to help Alabamians learn about “the policies and practices which govern the jails and prisons in the state.” We also funded “The Quiet Dignity of Choice,” a photography exhibit and narrative survey of the people
SUPER Teacher program begins, signaling AHA’s commitment to serve Alabama’s educators with trainings and resources that enhance teaching and professional development.
Rebuilding Alabama’s Front Porch, a year long effort for our 20th anniversary. It culminates in a televised conversation about reconnecting with our neighbors and communities.
Glimpses of Community photography project enlists Alabamians to document everyday life in their communities. More than 1,400 photos come in for exhibitions across the state.
Partnership begins with Museum on Main Street, bringing Smithsonian traveling exhibits to 60-plus Alabama town, so far, and inspiring discussions about our past, present, and future. 1999
Silver Anniversary Gala in Birmingham celebrates AHA’s first 25 years. The event features legendary author Toni Morrison and Alabama Humanities Fellow Odessa Woolfolk.
Images from Frances O. Robb’s In View of Home. The book, created in partnership with the Huntsville Museum of Art, led to a year-long series of programming. The project won AHA its first-ever Schwartz Prize, a prestigious award from the Federation of State Humanities Councils. Middle image: The Clown Wagon (1987), by Chip Cooper. Courtesy Huntsville Museum of Art.
Sir Jonathan Miller, the renowned British stage director, spoke at the first event in an innovative, decades-long series produced by Alabama Humanities and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.
and places of the Tennessee Valley, highlighting the region’s folk art, architecture, and cultural traditions.
And who received our first-ever grant? According to the paperwork, it appears that honor goes to Spring Hill College’s Human Relations Center, which received $9,000 for a “Colloquium on Human Values and Rights.”
To give an idea of just how different the focus was those first few years — using the humanities to provide a new lens through which to view policy issues — here’s the short description of that Spring Hill project: “A series of five presentations and discussions dealing with issues of capital punishment, environmental deterioration, abortion, and voter registration.”
Pulling no punches, we were.
While you can still hear echoes of that original mission from time to time, the emphasis on directly affecting public policy faded rather quickly. By the late ’70s, the organization’s focus had shifted more to what you’d
recognize today — the funding and promotion of impactful storytelling and lifelong learning that bring Alabamians together through the exploration of our shared history, our rich culture, our literature, art, and so much more.
One thing that hasn’t changed: We remain the primary source of funding for public humanities programming in Alabama. Since 1974, we’ve awarded more than $12.5 million in support of at least 2,182 public, humanitiesrich projects statewide — and counting.
Margaret Norman, of the Birmingham Jewish Federation, knows the impact of an Alabama Humanities Alliance grant. In 2023, she helped Temple Beth El earn an AHA grant for “In Solidarity,” a video and immersive civil rights experience at the temple exploring Birmingham’s civil rights movement through the lens of the city’s Jewish community.
Since then, “In Solidarity” has opened up new conversations among, and well beyond, Birmingham’s Jewish community. It has also received national attention from outlets like The New York Times for its approach to storytelling that asks visitors to “think about how these stories inform the way you make sense of the past, present, and future. What does it mean to be in solidarity with our neighbors?”
“AHA was probably the first organization to give us a grant for this,” Norman says. “And it did feel like a really big step in terms of conferring legitimacy to what we were doing. Even the process of receiving that grant opened us up to other opportunities because it helped us establish, ‘we’re here, we’re doing this project. This is a real thing.’”
Martha Bouyer, Ph.D., executive director of Historic Bethel Baptist Church Foundation, has served as a
Scholar Martha Bouyer partners with AHA to develop Stony the Road
We Trod, an immersive (and ongoing) NEH teaching institute that helps educators explore Alabama’s civil rights legacy.
2003
Founding of Jenice Riley Memorial Scholarships for K-8 history and civics teachers. We’ve awarded $110,000 to 106 Riley Scholars, supporting classroom goals and professional development.
First (of many) grants awarded to the innovative Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project, which provides humanities-rich educational opportunities to incarcerated Alabamians.
2006
After Hurricane Katrina, AHA and the NEH respond with emergency grants to the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park, Museum of Mobile, and public libraries along the coast.
A sampling of AHA publications and marketing materials, from the 1970s through the 2010s.
community partner for Temple Beth El’s project. She’s also an AHA project scholar, past grant recipient, and director of the AHA-funded teacher-education experience, “Stony the Road We Trod: Exploring Alabama’s Civil Rights Legacy.”
“It’s important that other organizations like the Alabama Humanities Alliance will stand up and take a chance on someone,” Bouyer says, “on someone who maybe nobody knows, no one who’s done anything, but who has an idea that might, just might, make a difference, if we empower them.”
Hitting our stride
As the 1970s turned to the '80s, we began dipping our toes into the land of original programming — going beyond grant-making alone.
In 1978, we responded to the national energy crisis with “Energy and the Way We Live.” As we noted in announcing the project: “The energy crisis affects us all. It threatens our way of living together, but it also offers us the chance to look at our past, and plan for the future.” In partnership with the Alabama Public Library Service and community colleges around the state, we presented public forums addressing the roots and
Encyclopedia of Alabama launches with plaudits from Gov. Bob Riley and Sen. Richard Shelby. Now 2,500 articles deep, the EOA’s 15.2 million visitors learn about all things Alabama.
2009
2008
AHA sponsors the Southern Literary Trail, highlighting Albert Murray’s Mobile, Lilian Hellman’s Demopolis, Ralph Ellison’s Tuskegee, F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald’s Montgomery, and more.
2010s
To Kill a Mockingbird: Awakening America’s Conscience honors the enduring significance of Harper Lee’s novel; the series ends with a screening of the AHA-funded film Our Mockingbird
2011
2010
With support from the NEH and Books-A-Million, AHA provides grants and donates 2,000 books to help schools and public libraries recover from the devastating tornadoes of April 2011.
impacts of the crisis on Alabama’s communities.
Then, in 1979, we launched our first AHA-directed effort, the Rural Humanities Program, providing ongoing resources to support rural Alabama communities. The program spawned discussion groups, oral history projects, and community festivals.
Both of these early efforts helped us dive into ever more ambitious projects.
First up, in 1983, was the Alabama History and Heritage Festival, which had been two years in the making. A massive, three-month “jubilee of the spirit of Alabama and its people,” the festival featured 50-plus events — storytelling, lectures, conferences, film screenings, music, exhibits — all focused on the local communities hosting the events. Locales included Auburn, Demopolis, Eufaula, Anniston, Mobile, Birmingham, Huntsville, and a concluding festival at the state capitol. The festival not only drew out the famously private Harper Lee to speak but it also resulted result in a book, Clearings in the Thicket: An Alabama Humanities Reader, that was published the following year, and shared talks and papers by festival participants with a wider audience across the state.
Then, in 1984, we launched Theatre in the Mind, thanks to our first Exemplary Award from the National
Endowment for the Humanities. What began as a one-off project would soon turn into a decades-long partnership with the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. It remains one of the best-known programs we’ve ever produced, and it had a profound impact on both organizations. For AHA, it was pivotal in two ways: It demonstrated how effectively the arts and humanities can enhance each other, and it established a model for collaborative programming that we follow to this day.
Former Alabama Humanities staff member Christine Reilly was tasked with shepherding Theatre in the Mind into existence. She remembers well its ambitious and auspicious opening, with a seminar led by Sir Jonathan Miller, the world-renowned British stage director.
“As he ascended the podium to launch the Theatre in the Mind project, all of us collectively held our breath,” Reilly recalls. “This was the first major event of [Alabama Humanities’] first directed project! But we soon exhaled as the brilliant and funny Miller captivated the standing-room-only audience.”
From there, the program was off and running. The concept for Theatre in the Mind was as straightforward as it was inventive: help people better appreciate, understand, and relate to the theatre. In practice, that took the shape of seminars led by well-known directors; a lecture series about each play produced by the Alabama Shakespeare Festival; workshops for drama teachers; printed publications; and a travel program that took theatre scholars and actors to schools, churches, and community centers across the state.
But the staple of Theatre in the Mind was the 15-minute “BardTalk” that would occur before each and every ASF performance — sparking curiosity and providing context for the play the audience was about to watch. And for 30 years, Susan Willis, Ph.D., delivered just about every
AHA’s Black and White Masked Ball in Mobile, on 45th anniversary of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, raises funds for Alabama Humanities programming in South Alabama.
Prime Time Family Reading Time debuts, aimed at increasing literacy among Alabama families. The program eventually transitions to a grants approach, supporting existing literacy groups.
Literature and Healthcare initiative helps healthcare professionals view their work through the humanities and gain greater empathy for their patients and each other.
2015
First Lady of the Revolution premieres, telling the story of Birmingham’s Henrietta Boggs, who married a future president of Costa Rica — and became a key figure in the country’s 1948 revolution.
Championed by executive director and Gulf War veteran Armand DeKeyser, Literature & The Veteran Experience helps U.S. veterans discuss how works of literature relate to their own war experiences.
Ramona Hyman, AHA Road Scholar, gives a talk on Rosa Parks, at Huntsville’s Oakwood College in 1992. Courtesy Alabama Department of Archives and History, donated by Alabama Media Group. Photo by Dave Dieter, Huntsville Times.
BardTalk there was. Patrons, in fact, often referred to her as the “Bard gal.” It was a term of endearment and one she embraced; for a time, it even graced her license plate.
“The plays didn’t need me to do their work for them, of course,” Willis says, “but I tried to give audiences permission to open up and listen, to greet and enjoy the ideas and issues, the human experiences and artistry they were about to meet.”
As the ASF’s resident dramaturg — and a longtime professor of English — Willis ran the Theatre in the Mind program for 30-plus years. And she has seen its lasting impact in the Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s educational programming to this day.
“Planning Theatre in the Mind meant weaving aspects of the humanities and the arts into each season’s pattern of plays — always different, always challenging,” she recalls. “It offered ASF a joyous and stimulating opportunity, and the many talented academics, speakers, and artists who shared their expertise made it rewarding for thousands of theatergoers, who went away with far more than their theatre stubs.”
A decade in, the “experiment” had proven a success: The humanities had secured a place in the everyday life of Alabamians. By 1985, we’d brought more than $1 million in federal funding to Alabama for communities and nonprofits to put on their own culturally rich events. And our original programming would only continue to grow. In fact, we were so busy, it appears our tenth anniversary might have snuck up on us; it passed without fanfare. Instead, we celebrated our eleventh year with a grand reception and dinner that coincided
with an Oktoberfest celebration at Birmingham’s historic Sloss Furnaces. (The only disappointment that night? The Pete Seeger concert had to be canceled, reasons unknown.)
In 1987, Robert C. Stewart took the reins as Alabama Humanities’ third executive director. He would remain in that role for 25 years. Over the course of that quartercentury, Stewart would oversee a steady expansion of our work, helping us reach more Alabamians than ever before, including some of AHA’s most well-known programs that are still offered today.
AHA’s Making Alabama bicentennial exhibit celebrates the state’s 200th birthday. It travels to all 67 counties over a three-year period, sharing Alabama’s rich and complex story.
With the Alabama Peace Officers Standards & Training Commission, AHA offers Humanities & Law Enforcement; officers learn about the “Scottsboro Boys” case and its relevance to their work.
2018
AHA takes on Alabama History Day, empowering students to research topics of interest and creatively present their findings. Teachers use AHD as a dynamic, projectbased learning tool.
AHA awards $1.3 million in federal COVID-19 relief and recovery grants to community cornerstones like libraries, museums, and more — helping to save or create 559 jobs statewide.
Historian Wayne Flynt has been part of AHA’s work from the very beginning. Photo by Jonathon Kelso.
AHA has often been called upon to commemorate Alabama's history. For the state's bicentennial, in 2019, our Making Alabama exhibit toured all 67 counties. It offered more than 100,000 visitors the chance to learn about our shared past — and consider our shared future.
“TO
BE HUMAN means to have both a sense of the tragic and a sense of humor. It means to be willing to live between tears and laughter, often flinching at the profundity of evil and suffering in the midst of life, yet never allowing such pain to eradicate the joyous grin that comes also from the very heart of things…To wit, to be human means to be able to live with our feet on the ground and our heads in the heavens. It means to live as creatures who know at once the grit and the grandeur of life, and see both as part of a pattern that we can ultimately neither control nor comprehend. It means to see in the lives and works of others, and in our own life and work,
glimpses of truth…that illuminate the rest of the way.”
—John
In 1987, for instance, we started what’s now known as the Road Scholars Speakers Bureau — a beloved storytelling program that’s most often utilized in libraries in every county of the state. In 1989, it was the Alabama Humanities Awards that took flight. Known today as the Alabama Colloquium, the annual event honors those Alabamians who most significantly use the humanities to impact our state, nation, and world.
Our teacher workshop series, begun in 1991, has impacted countless thousands of
Alabama’s teachers and students. Meanwhile, AHA’s partnership with the Smithsonian Institution, which harkens to 1997, still brings national traveling exhibits to the state — affording Alabamians the chance to consider how their communities connect to America’s broader, ever evolving, story. And in 2008, in collaboration with Auburn University and many other groups statewide, we went live with the digital Encyclopedia of Alabama.
Historian Wayne Flynt, Ph.D., who has been a scholarly collaborator and cherished friend for the entirety of AHA’s existence, served as the site’s founding editorin-chief. Upon its launch, he called the EOA “the most expansive and ambitious intellectual collaboration in state history.”
“For the first time in the state’s history,” Flynt asserted, “we [are writing] the major narrative of who we are, what we believe, how we have lived, and what we
Final (maybe!) name change to Alabama Humanities Alliance, affirming AHA’s commitment to cultivate allies and reflecting our diverse range of programs.
AHA’s first “post-pandemic” public event brings out nearly 700 people in Montgomery to honor our newest Alabama Humanities Fellows, Bryan Stevenson and the late John Lewis.
2023
Healing History launches with a new approach for Alabamians to talk, and listen, to each other. The goal is to use conversations about our past to build a better future for all, today.
AHA celebrates its 50th anniversary — and looks toward its next half-century of nurturing a smarter, kinder, ever more vibrant Alabama.
Kuykendall, former AHA scholar and Auburn University professor of religion, speaking at AHA’s 1983 Alabama History and Heritage Festival
have accomplished. We tell the story, warts and all. But we depict the beauty as well as the pollution, the dreams as well as the failures, the triumphs as well as the disasters.”
Thicket clearers
In 1985, when we published Clearings in the Thicket, the title choice was deliberate. It comes from Alabama historian Malcolm C. McMillan. In his 1975 text, The Land Called Alabama, McMillan writes: “Alabama is named for the great river which drains its center. The river in turn received its name from the Alabamas, an early tribe which once lived on its banks at or near the present site of Montgomery. The name Alabama is of Choctaw origin and means ‘thicket clearers.’”
Thicket clearers.
When we’re doing this thing right, that description can apply to the humanities, too. A past version of our mission statement, from 2004, expressed the humanities’ thicket-clearing potential this way:
“The study of the humanities — of history, literature, philosophy, languages, and the like — does not solve life’s mysteries but does offer ways of interpreting the world in which we live. By exploring the history of our community and nation, we discover a sense of place.
By reading and discussing literature, we recognize characters who remind us of people in our own lives. By asking questions about how society ought to treat its members, we deepen our own understanding of social justice.”
Clearing the thickets.
Fifty years on, that’s what the Alabama Humanities Alliance remains committed to doing — helping us all better understand the world around us, our neighbors, ourselves, a little bit better. All through the simple yet profound act of sharing our stories.
Dive deeper into AHA’s history.
Check out a package of online extras that look back on additional moments from our past that have had a lasting impact.
Alabama voices, American stories
Roy Hoffman on the power of sharing our stories
by Roy Hoffman
“The Dance” (woodblock, 2015), by Katie Baldwin.
Each of us has a story to tell. Here’s an outline of mine: Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, in the 1950s and ’60s, Jewish, novelist and journalist, lived in New York City for twenty years before returning to Mobile Bay with my wife and daughter, sociable, optimistic, a curious journeyer, politically engaged.
There’s much more, of course, and not just about me. “I contain multitudes,” as Walt Whitman wrote — we all do — the generations that gave rise to us, the people we love, the stories in our DNA.
Sharing those stories — both to tell and to listen, actively, empathetically — is a moral act. “You never really understand another person until you consider things from his point of view,” Harper Lee’s Atticus tells Scout, “…until you climb in his skin and walk around in it.” We do that through stories.
Exchanging them is freeing, too. There’s the “I,” “me,” “mine” — the eternal confines of self — then there are the eight billion other people on the planet. Who are they? Listen up!
I’ve been privileged, as a writer, to hear countless stories from some of our best voices.
In Albert Murray’s Harlem apartment, in 1997, in conversation about his memoir, South to a Very Old Place, I was swept away by his tale of growing up in Magazine Point, Alabama, along the Mobile River in the community known as Africatown — the juke joints that propelled his love of blues, the books, including Faulkner, Mann, fairy tales, and mythologies, that inspired him. With letters from Ralph Ellison on the desk — they’d corresponded since becoming friends at Tuskegee, and he was organizing a book — Murray told me how, before ever leaving home, he’d traveled far: “When I got to third grade and had a geography book, I could see it. It wasn’t like I was outside of the world. I was part of the world.”
In Sena Jeter Naslund’s study in Louisville, Kentucky, with the manuscript of her 2001 civil rights novel, Four Spirits, stacked on the table, she recalled when she discovered story magic. She’d been ten years old in Birmingham, 1953, on a sweltering afternoon, shivering as she read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie. “I realized I was trembling,” she recalled. “I thought, ‘It’s these words that make me feel this way. I’d like to do that one day.’”
In 2024, over a seafood lunch in Fairhope, Alabama, near my home, Howell Raines spoke to me of his familyrooted Civil War history: Silent Cavalry: How Union
Solders From Alabama Helped Sherman Burn Atlanta – and Then Got Written Out of History. Throughout his stellar career — Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, former executive editor of The New York Times — Raines had “saved string,” an old-school reporter’s term, determined to “keep searching, keep seeking,” the facts that told of Alabamians who had supported, and fought for, the Union, including forebears from Winston County. These soldiers, who did not fit into the mythology of the Lost Cause, as he explains it, were erased. “History is not what happens but what gets written down, shaped by who’s holding power,” he said. Silent Cavalry, a combination of memoir, history, and archival sleuthing, is intended to “show the rest of the story … a big piece of rounded Alabama.” Raines reminded me how stories can unearth secrets, empower and galvanize us, to reconsider long-held beliefs.
Stories are democratic. We all have a big, overarching one to tell — and countless others, perhaps about the time a hurricane thrashed our home, or when we felt spiritually uplifted, or shook the hand of a hero.
There are celebratory stories. In Mobile’s Toulminville community, Herbert Aaron Sr., many years ago, showed me a display of trophies awarded his son for his baseball prowess, and told how Henry — soon known to the world as Hank Aaron — came of age at the playground across the street. “When Henry was a boy,” he told me, “I couldn’t keep a ball out of his hands.”
Traumatic stories reverberate with their own terrible force. In 2010, I sat in a coffee shop in Eight Mile, Alabama, while a mother, Mildred, wept to me about her Air Force son, David, killed in Afghanistan when a Taliban rocket-propelled grenade hit his helicopter. I wrote up the details of David’s young life, his valor and sacrifice, and the news-obit appeared on the Mobile Press-Register’s front page. Mildred sent me a note of gratitude that her son’s story, however fleeting, had public recognition.
Dauphin Street, Mobile, around the turn of the 20th century.
As the grandson of Eastern European Jews who opened a store in Mobile’s downtown in the early 1900s — with their neighbors speaking Yiddish, Polish, Arabic, Spanish, and Greek — I’m attuned to the global South, the profoundly American stories within the Southern ones. In my novel, Chicken Dreaming Corn, inspired by my grandparents’ world on Mobile’s Dauphin Street, memories from Romania to Lebanon to Cuba press in on the hard-working dreamers intent on providing an unbounded future for their children. “Read this novel to find, from Europe and the past,” said Harper Lee of this book, “some of the best aspects of our Southern heritage.”
In much of my fiction, largely rooted in Alabama or the Gulf Coast, characters are often, in their hearts, caught between places, as in The Promise of the Pelican, set on Mobile Bay but stretching far beyond. Hank — a child Holocaust survivor from Amsterdam, retired Alabama lawyer in his 80s who just wants to fish on Fairhope Pier — is entreated to defend Julio, a Honduran worker at a bayside resort, accused of murder. The men’s stories, increasingly intertwined, are shaped by flashbacks of childhood traumas, what it means to be an immigrant, perceived as “the other,” and the quest for justice. Stories are rich everywhere, but returning to the South
in my forties, after residing in Manhattan and Brooklyn since college, attuned me to those of my birthplace, transported by the stories of my father, Charley Hoffman, above all, then all those unfolding around me.
In fractious times, the optimist in me believes stories can even bring us back together as a culture. “The key,” I wrote in an essay on politics and civic discourse, is for folks “to try to engage … with people with other points of view. We might not share common ground, but we inhabit it, often for generations.”
Narratives, after all, are part of our legacy.
As I wrote in my essay book, Back Home: Journeys Through Mobile: “When buildings are leveled, when land is developed, when money is spent, when our loved ones pass on, when we take our places a little further back every year on the historical timeline, what we still have are stories.”
Roy Hoffman is the author of four novels and two nonfiction books, and has written for outlets such as the Mobile Press-Register, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times
AHA’s own storytellers
Back in 1987, Alabama Humanities coordinated the state’s commemorations for the U.S. Constitution bicentennial. One of our ideas at the time: Enlist scholarly experts on Constitutional history to travel the state and speak at different festivities.
From that seed was born the Alabama Humanities Speakers Bureau, better known today as Road Scholars, our longest-running program. Today, the Road Scholars Speakers Bureau boasts some 35 scholar-storytellers. They are professors, poets, artists, authors, musicians, historians, archivists, folklorists, and professional storytellers. They travel to libraries, museums, historical societies, and community centers — offering more than 100 presentations on everything from state history and culture to sports, music, art, religion, film, and more.
“There is not just one single kind of human experience,” says Dolores Hydock, a storyteller, an actor, and a Road Scholar for more than two decades. “If we hear different stories from different voices across different moments in time, we can begin to sense the larger story of what it is to be human. I once heard a wise
storyteller say, ‘All stories have the same message: You are not alone.’”
Peggy Allen Towns, one of AHA’s newest Road Scholars, agrees. A historian and author, she’s conducted extensive research on the African American community in her Decatur hometown.
“My hope,” she says, “is that by telling our stories, we are not only informed about where we’ve been; but united, inspired, enriched, and empowered to spark flames of hope, to value the contributions of all, to engage in constructive dialogue, and work together to improve the lives of all Alabamians.”
Readers
2024 Alabama Humanities Fellows
Something to say
We have tossed around quite a few definitions for our Alabama Humanities Fellows awards since we first began bestowing them, in 1989. We’ve gone the highfalutin route, proclaiming them for individuals who have made “exemplary contributions to public understanding and valuing of the humanities.” Other times, we’ve streamlined that to “people who make Alabama a smarter, kinder, more vibrant place to live.” Both are true. But what we wind up saying most often now is that, at its heart, this honor is for Alabamians who challenge us to examine what it means to be human. And who help us see the humanity in each other. That description certainly applies to this year’s roster of Alabama Humanities Fellows.
Brittany Howard. Jason Isbell. Rick Bragg. Roy Wood Jr. Two musicians. An author. A humorist. Standard-bearing storytellers, all. These are four Alabamians who have been shaped by their deep roots in this state. Howard’s and Isbell’s rural northern Alabama. Wood Jr.'s West End of Birmingham. Bragg’s Piedmont foothills. Yet they also have each, in their own way, done some shaping of their own. As the following profiles reveal, this year’s honorees know how to deliver hard truths while still seeking what Cassandra King calls “the commonality in our stories.” These Fellows urge us to look beyond ourselves, at a past and a present that aren’t always tinted rose. “Look close,” as Caleb Johnson writes in his essay on Jason Isbell. “It might not feel comfortable, but I promise you’ll see the beauty among the blight.”
Brittany Howard | 2024 Alabama Humanities Fellow
STAYING HIGH ON THE MUSIC
by Charlotte Teague
On a quiet evening while driving on a dirt road in rural Alabama, my mother mentioned Brittany Howard.
“Who is she?” I asked.
“She’s a singer from Athens, and I think she’s so pretty.”
“What’s her music like?”
My mother looked at me, and said, “It’s loud, but it whispers; it’s outrageous, but beautiful.”
This short conversation started my fascination with Howard, the Grammy-winning, song-writing, free-living, and soul-stirring musician whose Athens upbringing took place not far from my own in Hillsboro, Alabama. I quickly came to understand that her music tells the story of our shared Tennessee Valley homeland. Where, as Howard sings, the “tomatoes are green and cotton is white,” a place of “honeysuckle tangled up in kudzu vine,” but also where racial tensions persist: “I’m one drop of three-fifths, right?”
“The magic of much of Howard's music encapsulates all that we know and love about northern Alabama."
In 1854, Henry David Thoreau composed his most famous work, Walden, an artistic reflection about simple living and a full life: I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and
see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
These famous words can also characterize the life of Brittany Howard. Like Thoreau, she, too, wants to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. And she knows all too well what Thoreau meant when he wrote he wanted to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it.
With Howard, there’s always a striving for joy, even amidst the meanness of life. When you consider that she lost her childhood home to a lightning strike and her sister, Jamie, to a rare eye disease, you can understand where a lyric like “you gotta hold on” comes from.
Brittany Howard teaches us how to “Stay High” on the magic of the music. The Limestone County native has become a hometown hero for her music that shows the world who we are here in the Tennessee Valley.
From her famed start with the Alabama Shakes to her solo career, her music is a magic carpet — moving audiences through clouds of time and joy, sorrow and pain. Telling stories of humanity, love, grit, and home, awakening souls and opening eyes to the sky, to nature, to abundance, and to living without regret, reminding us that there is a rainbow — a promise of a better life for us all on the other side of the alarm clock, the time clock, and tomorrow. Quieting that voice that wants to be loud and torture us about all that is not the best in our lives, but pushing us to be our best selves, asking the question in song: “What Now?,” believing and not believing, and
hearing the answer in another song, “I’ll prove it to you.” This is how Howard shares herself and hugs us through her music.
Her music shows that we are connected to one another. There may be mountains, miles, and time between us, Howard concedes to someone in “Short and Sweet.” But there’s also plenty to bind us. As she sings in “You Ain’t Alone” — “we really ain’t that different, you and me.”
The magic of much of Howard’s music encapsulates all that we know and love about northern Alabama. The music is front porch waving, hop scotch stepping, moonshine drinking, tambourine playing, old story time telling, Athens State fiddling, and meeting on the street blowing car horns: hugging and holding up traffic.
It is love wrapped in lyrics — in a gift box for us all to hear and behold. It blesses my heart and yours, and the music beckons us to come closer and sit around a warm fire of loving and living life. Her music uplifts
and transforms through the power of all that we know about our past; after all, according to Howard, “History Repeats.” As a daughter of northern Alabama, I, too, understand what this means; but her music reminds me of possibilities, so I touch the music to dream.
Yes, like Howard, I, too, just want to “Stay High.” To “smile and laugh and jump and clap, and yell and holler and just feel great.” And holding on to that joy is easier when you listen to Brittany Howard. Her guitar, the voice, the lyrics — all fresh air, sunlight, innocence, and fireworks. The music keeps us hopeful. She tells the stories — her stories and our stories — through her sound, and we listen with our hearts, minds, and souls, seeking connection and freedom. It’s magic, and it’s how we stay high, together.
Charlotte Teague, Ph.D., is an associate professor of English at Alabama A&M University.
Jason Isbell | 2024 Alabama Humanities Fellow
WHERE DO YOU
COME FROM?
by Caleb Johnson
When I was a student at The University of Alabama, seeing bands was an aspirational experience. Not because I harbored any illusion of becoming a musician. I knew back then that I wanted to make something, and whatever resulted would likely have its foundation in my home state because, well, that was all I really understood of the world. I never dared to call this dream art; nobody where I come from made art. However, a relative noticed this urge and introduced me to the Drive-By Truckers. Their songs cracked open my head, my heart. In particular, the narrative-driven tunes written by Jason Isbell, who was in the midst of a well-documented tenure with the band. I became even more captivated by them when I learned that he, like myself, came from an unincorporated rural community in north Alabama.
“That's what Isbell's songs say: Look close, it might not feel comfortable, but I promise you'll see beauty among the blight."
Green Hill, where Isbell comes from, has the advantage of being located near Muscle Shoals and its rich musical history, though there was also a time not so long ago when said history was forgotten outside the Quad City area. Before the documentary Muscle Shoals, before Isbell became a movie star himself. I imagine a younger
Isbell had to work through the geography of answering the loaded question — where do you come from? — by first hoping someone knew where was Muscle Shoals or, God forbid, Green Hill. When I was growing up in Arley, a lakeside community in Winston County, classmates used to say they were from Jasper. It was easier to lay claim to the nearest town of any size rather than explain where was Arley exactly. Or better yet what was Arley, and what did it mean to come from there.
It is impossible for me to consider what it means to be human without considering place. I’m not an academic, despite what my day job implies; I’m a fiction writer, which means I put stock in symbols and rely on magical thinking. It seems reasonable to me that we share more than just proximity with the dirt upon which we trod and the air that we breathe. There must be something happening at the cellular level. I can’t help thinking that Jason Isbell would not be Jason Isbell were he not from Green Hill. I know were it not for his origins there he never would’ve written the masterpiece “Decoration Day,” which tells the story of a local feud between the Lawsons and the Hills. I suspect Isbell could’ve continued writing cinematic songs such as this one for as long as he wished. But he didn’t just do that, because he is an artist, and being an artist means refusing to settle for what comes easy, remaining curious about the world, and striving to connect with others, as well as your past and present self.
Isbell certainly refused to settle when writing his breakout solo album Southeastern, and it catapulted him into popular culture. I remember once, not long after Isbell left the Truckers, seeing him play at a bar in Tuscaloosa best known for yellowhammer cocktails served in plastic cups. You could count on two hands the number of people in the room that night. Hearing Isbell’s songs live was, for me, like grabbing ahold of an
electric fence. Later, I felt protective over his growing popularity, especially as the conversation around his music urged a reckoning with rural, white working-class Alabama. A reckoning that never happened, at least not in the arts, but one that reaffirmed our stories matter.
Of course they do. To believe otherwise is to buy wholesale a lie, to accept that some bogeyman is to blame for our current socioeconomic station, for our jealousy, for our bitterness, for our lack of self-worth — rather than look in a mirror. That’s what Isbell’s songs say: Look close. It might not feel comfortable, but I promise you’ll see beauty among the blight.
There was a time, not so long ago, when it was much harder to find complex representations of rural Southern folks in our culture’s nooks and crannies, let alone out in the open. There was no “Outfit” or “Speed
Trap Town” or “White Beretta,” or the many other working-class songs spread across Isbell’s eight studio albums of original material. Forget stories about what it means to stay and make a life, which Isbell has done personally and professionally.
Not so long ago, if you as a Southerner felt, say, apart — then you wanted to leave. You dreamed of getting far, far away. You had to go searching for a place where you felt like you belonged. Many understandably still do. But thanks to artists like Jason Isbell, it’s a little easier to imagine that place right here, then work to make it so.
Caleb Johnson is the author of the novel Treeborne (Picador), which received an honorable mention for the Southern Book Prize. Currently, he teaches creative writing at the University of South Alabama.
Rick
Bragg | 2024 Alabama Humanities Fellow
HIS GRITTY
GRANDEUR
by Cassandra King
In the prologue of Rick Bragg’s stunning memoir, All Over but the Shoutin’, Rick writes that it’s not an especially important book, simply the story of a strong woman, a tortured man, and three sons who lived “hemmed in by thin cotton and ragged history in northeastern Alabama.” Rick claims that his is a story that could be told by anyone, with this addendum: anyone with an absentee father who drank away his finer nature and a mother who sacrificed so her sons could rise above the poverty and degradation of their upbringing. Although the author admits that it’s a story that needed to be told — deserved to be told — he argues it isn’t really important to anyone but his family and the others in their orbit who lived it, friend or foe.
I, for one, beg to differ. And I can say with a clear-eyed certainty that I speak on behalf of a vast multitude of devoted Rick Bragg readers. I would even argue that Rick’s works aren’t just important, they’re the essence of why we need the bond of storytelling today more than ever.
“Rick's works aren't just important, they're the essence of why we need the bond of storytelling today more than ever."
Rick wrote Ava’s Man as the story of his maternal grandparents. In his endorsement, Larry McMurtry called it a book of a certain “gritty grandeur.” High praise indeed, from a master. To me, McMurtry
was acknowledging that Rick’s works aren’t merely picturesque, tragicomic tales of those who have been called hillbillies, peckerwoods, rednecks, even po’ white trash — the mill workers, cotton pickers, bootleggers, tenant farmers, and vagabonds dragging their ragtag families here and there, chasing the dream of a better life. Nor are they stories for the holier-than-thou to relish, with smug gratitude that their families never faced such degrading circumstances. Gritty and grim, true; but beyond that, these tales reveal the steely courage it takes to overcome even the most difficult obstacles life throws our way. And the grandeur? That comes in the telling, the magnificent tribute paid to those unheard voices by giving them a venue to have their say, to tell their stories.
This was made true for me in a whole new way when I first met Rick Bragg. Many years ago, my husband Pat and I visited him at his mother’s farmhouse near Jacksonville, Alabama. Pat had received an advance copy of Shoutin’, which moved him so deeply he not only endorsed the book but also sent flowers to Rick’s mother, Margaret. I brought her half a chocolate cake (another story, for another time). Just as Pat and I arrived, Rick came varooming up the driveway in a racy sports car, his arm hanging out the window. As soon as he slung himself out of the car and drawled a greeting, I knew him. We’d never met, but — as we say in the South — I knew his people.
The lower Alabama of wiregrass, peanut farms, and sandy fields where I was raised is a different world than Rick’s Appalachian foothills. Our vernacular differs, but we still understand each other. Both of us have eaten purple hulls, tea cakes, and field-dressed quail. We have kin who were washed in the blood of the Lamb; we celebrate buck dancing, banjo picking, and the Crimson Tide. There is a commonality in our stories, in the way
the past has formed who we are and how we got here. No Southern storyteller can truly tell the tales of his or her life without delving into the past.
Rick Bragg’s own works are shaped by a past that turned him into the writer he became. At one point, he was urged to dig deeper into his father’s life by the great Mississippi writer, Willie Morris: “My boy,” Morris said, “there is no place you can go that [your father] will not be.”
Those words struck me like a thunderbolt. They say all there is to be said about the past, and why none of us ever truly escapes it. It is a part of who we are, as a people, a community, and a nation. We are compelled to look at our own history through the lives of our
people — and to share and listen to others’ stories, too. Storytelling enables us to form a common bond, to understand each other better, and to look more deeply into our lives. Rick says that he tells his stories mainly for “one more glimpse into a vanishing culture for the people who found themselves inside such stories, the people who shook my hand [after reading my books] and said, ‘Son, you stole my story.’”
Yes, son, you did. And mine, too.
Cassandra King is an Alabama native, an awardwinning author, and an Alabama Humanities Fellow.
Roy Wood Jr. | 2024 Alabama Humanities Fellow
MAKE US LAUGH, MAKE US THINK
by Jeffrey Melton
Comedy is serious business. Roy Wood Jr. understands that basic fact quite well; he is a formidable comedian because he is a serious man.
The Birmingham native has often discussed his indebtedness to his father, who devoted his professional life as a journalist to the civil rights struggle. Wood’s respect for his father is best illustrated by how he summarizes his father’s commitment: “If it was Black and it was strife, he was embedded there.” Though the career differences between father and son are significant, Roy Wood Jr.’s work is equally embedded in reporting on the ongoing racial strife in America. His method is clear: “If I can get you to laugh at it, then I can get you to listen.” The message comes through time and again, and hope for a better, more empathetic world can be found in the laughter of those of us willing to listen.
“For serious-minded humorists like Roy Wood Jr., laughter is often tinged with pain, and therein lies its vital importance and its undeniable power."
All humor arises from the recognition of incongruity. And that’s why America is the funniest nation on the planet. Our humor arises from a peculiar cultural values
system that teeters on a democratic idea of equality, one that often walks hand in hand with outrageous inequalities. The set-up goes like this: On the one hand, the United States grants equal freedom to all individuals. On the other hand, the preceding statement is simply not true. The distance between our aspirations and our day-to-day actions makes for a very slippery banana peel, indeed.
The cultural discomfort caused by this basic incongruity has defined American humor for generations. The disconnect between beautifully noble ideals and a less-than-ideal reality is both tragic and comic. Its persistence has created plenty of room for comedians to draw laughter from Americans who too often seem willing to accept failure but who nonetheless persistently dream of a better world. For seriousminded humorists like Roy Wood Jr., laughter is often tinged with pain, and therein lies its vital importance and its undeniable power. When Wood makes us laugh, the goal is not only to soothe pain in the short term but also to initiate change for the long term.
There is no way I can do justice to any segment from Wood’s work, but I hope one quick example will indicate the ways he has worked to make us laugh and think. In his 2021 special Imperfect Messenger, Wood makes comic references to examples of American popular culture that feel like they have, as he puts it, the “residue of racism on it.” He observes, for example, that the hyper-presence of American flags suggests something uncomfortable. If he encounters a scene with an abundance of flags, he cannot help but worry that “there’s a little too much freedom in this space.”
This great American joke plays with our tensions because, quite simply, it implies an uncomfortable fact: “Freedom” is often expressed most loudly by those who have only their own freedom in mind. In some
instances, flags may send a message that goes beyond, or even against, a genuine patriotic expression. Wood, then, poses a simple but provocative question: “How many American flags equal one Confederate flag?”
That is a funny line. It challenges any simplistic notion of American values as fully shared. Life in America has never been that simple. The power of the joke resides in its structure. It is a question that has no answer, but it nonetheless forces some reckoning from the audience. We laugh, but we must also think about it. Go ahead.
Wood’s raucously funny material has already brought much laughter to Americans who need it. More significantly, his capacity to mock false cultural assumptions forces us to face the incongruities that too often undermine the bold promise of America. Unlike tragedy, however, comedy asserts an expectation for a better world — one where we learn from our past,
rather than repeat it. His sensitivity to the hardships that define so many moments in American life shines through in his humor and so does his hopefulness.
Roy Wood Jr. has earned success as a humorist, but much work remains. As he has noted: “I think my father would be proud, but I think he’d be even prouder if I go up there and make sure that I’m talking about something real. Because when you have the microphone, you better have something to say.”
Of that, there is no doubt: For those willing to listen, Roy Wood Jr. has something to say.
Jeffrey Melton, Ph.D., is professor of American Studies at the University of Alabama. He specializes in American literature, humor, and satire.
Humanities in ‘Everyday Use’
On the power of learning from, and with, each other
by Zanice Bond
Author’s note: This title is a nod to Alice Walker’s short story, “Everyday Use,” first published in Harper’s Magazine (April 1973), and well worth a read today.
Sometimes, usually around midterms, when my undergraduate students at Tuskegee University are getting tired and need a break — or start to wonder how relevant the humanities are to their lives — I ask them to imagine that they have been invited to the governor’s mansion for dinner. I ask them to envision the rooms, the art on the walls, the people, the food, the music, the books on the shelves, and the conversations they might encounter. As they enter this imaginary space, I ask if they would recognize the Gee’s Bend quilt hanging on the wall or that Chester Higgins photograph — yes, the one he took in Brazil that’s on the cover of the Geneva Smitherman book we read in class.
Some will notice Imani Perry and Joy Harjo on the shelves or Joey Brackner on the coffee table. Others will admire the assemblage art — then recall their
presentation at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art and how they connected Langston Hughes’s “Christ in Alabama” to Lonnie Holley’s “Pressure from the Burn.” A few will hear conversations that include Zora Neale Hurston or Booker T. Washington. I ask if they would be able to contribute to those conversations — to speak of Hurston, a Notasulga native, as a dynamic Harlem Renaissance writer and a folklorist. Would they mention the brilliant women who worked tirelessly with Washington or note how his collaborations with philanthropist Julius Rosenwald changed the educational landscape for Blacks in the South?
We soon return to the four walls of our classroom — that safe space to think critically, write, and prepare ourselves to engage with our respective communities and the world. We agree that opportunities to share
“Bars” work-clothes quilt, c. 1950, by Lutisha Pettway, Gee’s Bend quilter. © 2024 Estate of Lutisha Pettway / Artists Rights Society, New York.
what we have studied in the classroom, whether K-12 or university, may appear anytime — over dinner, during a hike, after a visit to a museum. To teach is a dynamic, communal experience, for teachers are always learning.
Teachers are students are teachers. . . .
For fifty years, the Alabama Humanities Alliance has provided important programs that enrich learning for teachers and students alike. I am most familiar with AHA’s teacher workshops that support K-12 educators who seek to expand both their knowledge and their curricula. Their students may end up in a literature class with me or in another humanities program across the globe. Of course, information from these workshops could help teachers to inspire a future mechanic who reads novels, a plumber who recites poetry, an Uber driver who frequents the theater. Either way, the aim is to help make a more humane and literate society of people willing to learn from, and grow with, each other.
Through the years, I’ve been fortunate to serve as a project scholar for AHA’s teacher workshops. The first one I led focused on The Wives of Booker T., an unpublished play by Dyann Robinson, Broadway dancer-turned-playwright who documents, on the stage of the Tuskegee Repertory Theatre, the lives and experiences of Black Alabamians, among others.
Guest scholars from Alabama State University, Auburn University, and Tuskegee University designed segments for the day that examined, for example, Margaret Murray Washington, the third wife of Booker T. Washington, who was an active club woman and educational reformer. We also studied Brazilian dramatist Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Of course, it was a privilege to have Robinson discuss her creative process and meticulous archival research, as well.
This play was especially important because it amplified voices and ideas of women who often remained in the shadows of a powerful husband. After a working lunch with several cast members from the play, the workshop ended with a visit to the graves of Fannie Norton Smith Washington, Olivia Davidson Washington, and Margaret Murray Washington. We celebrated these women’s lives, Robinson’s work, and the future of the students who would study these women and be inspired by them.
In 2022, Ashley M. Jones became Alabama’s youngest and first African American poet laureate. It was thrilling to think students could be a part of this historic moment — especially with someone like Jones who draws from history, music, even gardening to help readers understand and appreciate the world around them.
So, I proposed “All Y’all Really From Alabama: Examining the Poetry of Ashley M. Jones.” On June 28, 2022, AHA hosted this teacher workshop at the Alabama Department of History and Archives in Montgomery. Again, scholars and writers from around the state contributed to the experience — discussing selected poems, examining the history referenced in Jones’s work, and creating writing prompts for poems and personal narratives. We ended the workshop drinking hibiscus tea and talking shop with our poet laureate.
Then, last year, AHA embarked on a five-city series on “Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing, and the Power of Knowing Our Roots” that began in Huntsville and ended in Mobile. Gyasi and her family, originally from Ghana, made Huntsville home when she was a child. This series brought local scholars, community historians, and genealogists together with workshop participants who included teachers as well as community members.
Gyasi’s novel covers the experiences of eight generations of a family with roots in West Africa. Trafficking, the transatlantic slave trade, and movement across generations brought descendants to other destinations, including Alabama. Scholars with roots in India, Puerto Rico, and Ghana led excellent presentations that provided historical context, new teaching methods, and literary analysis for educators to share in their classrooms — and for anyone else to share in book clubs or community-centered discussions. The Homegoing series also offered me a full-circle moment as one of my former Tuskegee students — a newly-minted Ph.D., now teaching at the University of Montevallo — served as one of our guest scholars.
The series has had a lasting impact on those who joined in. Just last week, Nancy, a participant from the Huntsville workshop, contacted me. She and her sister Phyllis had just returned from their first trip to Ghana. Before their departure, Nancy purchased a copy of Homegoing for her sister. Phyllis took it with them and read it during long bus rides across the country. Their conversations about the book piqued the interest of other passengers, and the novel soon became a kind of common read. In fact, after finishing the book, one group member exclaimed, “This book changed my life!”
How profoundly grateful we are not only to have the humanities in our lives but for the freedom to put them to everyday use.
Zanice Bond, Ph.D., is an associate professor of English at Tuskegee University and an AHA project scholar.
‘Etched
into our being’
Geneticist Richard Myers explores what we can learn about ourselves when we study the very elements that make us human
by Richard Myers
The thirst for knowledge about the natural world seems to be a uniquely human trait, perhaps even etched into our being. From ancient times, even in human prehistory, people have explored, sampled, and recorded phenomena on our planet and beyond in attempts to understand cause and effect, not just because it’s interesting, but also because it can help us solve problems. We are especially interested in learning about ourselves, seeking to understand our bodies, brains, physiology, health, disease — as well as our history, culture, values, and our place within nature and the universe. These disciplines are labeled the sciences and the humanities, and they are sometimes, mistakenly, thought of as unrelated, or even antithetical, to each other. However, it doesn’t take much to see that these two ways of knowing are always connected, and, for many of us, deeply intertwined.
I’m one of those people. I am a faculty investigator at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville. Here and elsewhere, I’ve spent much of my career studying human genetics, with the aim of understanding how our genes (what we are born with) as well as our environment (what we are exposed to and experience) contribute to who and what we each become. I have particularly sought to understand our brain — how it works, how it is different from all other organisms' brains, and what goes wrong in neurological and behavioral disorders.
And while I am not a card-carrying practitioner of the humanities, almost all the activities of those disciplines are part of my everyday life, personally and professionally. Like many people, I have long pondered the defining characteristics of our species — our history, what makes us different from other species, and how our human characteristics differ from culture to culture, as well as from person to person. And the scientific research I do every day on finding the links between our genes and our brains is heavily influenced by those endeavors we call the humanities.
Even though I spent almost half my life elsewhere, I am a son of Alabama who left and then came back. I was born in Selma and spent the first 10 years of my life there. In those early days, I had no burning desire to be a scientist. But, thanks to my parents, I did have a zest for learning. I loved animals and nature, music, art, history, and storytelling. I had the good fortune of living across the street from the inimitable Ms. Kathryn Tucker Windham, who frequently came to my school to tell stories to us enthralled grade schoolers.
But science? The science I was exposed to in the late '50s and early '60s was from (mostly) terrible movies that depicted scientists as evil and sometimes demented people bent on harming others or destroying the planet. I started reading science fiction and loved the genre because it imagined fantastic technological possibilities such as space travel and explored the future of
humanity, often in a more positive and optimistic light, which suited me well. Still, none of this sparked even a remote interest in “doing” science. It was really chance that led me into that career.
We moved to Tuscaloosa, and halfway through college there, thanks to two professors who were gifted teachers and researchers, I discovered that, yes, people can get paid to ask questions about how the world works and then design and conduct experiments in attempts to answer those questions. To make sense of the world around and within us. Now, that hooked me. I decided to pursue the training to become a life sciences researcher. On to the University of California, Berkeley, then Harvard, for my advanced training, and then back to the San Francisco Bay Area, where I became a professor and set up my own laboratory to do research in human biology. Scientists were just beginning to identify genes that are involved in human diseases, using tools to sift through the 6 billion DNA letters that make up the 23 pairs of our chromosomes, and I became obsessed with using genetics to figure out what causes brain diseases and how to use this information to do something about them.
In 1990, the field of human genetics received an exponential boost with the birth of the Human Genome Project. This international collaboration, which included my laboratory at Stanford University, spent 13 years and billions of dollars to determine the entire genetic makeup of a human being. We called this puzzle assemblage the “sequence of our genome.” By now, three decades later, the genomes of millions of people, plants, animals, and microbes have been sequenced, and our learnings, along with advanced technology, mean this sequencing can now be accomplished more quickly and much more cheaply.
Most importantly, this work has already begun to revolutionize medicine, as well as agriculture, environmental science, our understanding of our
ancestry, evolutionary biology, our response to toxins and other features of the environment, infectious diseases, forensics — practically every dimension of human experience.
“These are the sciences, yes, but they wouldn’t be possible without the humanities. That thirst for knowledge, for connections, for learning about our past and considering new and better futures."
Here are some examples of what we can learn from this revolution.
A few years into the Human Genome Project, my laboratory identified a gene that causes a severe type of progressive epilepsy in children when they inherit a specific DNA spelling mistake — a mutation — from both parents. Because the symptoms are not easily distinguished from other forms of epilepsy, neurologists had been treating these children with a widely used drug that is effective for most people who have seizures. However, for this particular form of epilepsy, that drug is very harmful. As soon as we found the gene, clinics started testing for mutations in this gene in children with epilepsy and using a different drug that doesn’t cause harm.
A more recent and incredibly exciting example is work led by Dr. Greg Cooper here at HudsonAlpha. His group, working together with teams throughout the Institute,
Richard Myers, l-r: Age 3, at home in Selma; postdoctoral researcher, Harvard University, 1984; today, chief scientific officer at HudsonAlpha, Huntsville.
has studied thousands of people, mostly children, who have unexplained neurological and other diseases. By determining the entire genetic make-up of these individuals, Greg’s group has been able to identify the genetic causes in more than a third of those tested, providing extremely valuable information for the patients and their families and healthcare providers, often leading to treatments, relief, and improvement in the lives of severely affected individuals.
These are the sciences, yes, but they wouldn’t be possible without the humanities. That thirst for knowledge, for connections, for learning about our past and considering new and better futures.
And it’s not just discoveries about health and disease we’re turning up with this research. We’re also directly learning about humanity and our place on earth. By comparing the genome sequences of multiple people, we now know that humans are incredibly similar genetically. Our DNA is 99.9% identical, regardless of where in the world you and your ancestors are from. The vast majority of the DNA differences between people appear not to have any obvious consequence, and those DNA differences that do result in different traits (like disease, resistance to infection, and skin color, to name a few) are typically found in all of the world’s populations. It is striking that a smattering of only a few genetic differences appear to be specific to particular ethnicities,
and these are typically superficial. To me, this is profound. We really are “the family of humankind,” and I believe that embracing our similarities, along with our differences, makes the world a better place.
There is a deeply human element to the process of performing such research, too. When we talk about genetics, we are delving into the essence of our humanity, learning about the health, families, and histories of individuals and groups of people. This demands an intense level of responsibility to respect and protect the participants in such research, as well as the applications of the knowledge we learn from it. Enter the humanities again. Since the onset of the Human Genome Project, the scientific community has conducted a large amount of research into the ethical, social, and legal impacts of learning so much about our genetics. Genetic privacy, informed consent, legal protections, community engagement, cultural diversity, and other aspects of bioethics are important considerations of every study.
Learning about our genomes has also greatly helped us understand our history — where we all come from. It’s no accident, of course, that genealogy and genetics share an opening syllable. If you’ve ever spit into the tube of a home DNA test kit then you, too, have blended the sciences and humanities to learn more about your past. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Archeology, anthropology, and linguistics have identified artifacts, as well as origins, of languages and human culture. Genetic studies of living and ancient humans — and our evolutionary relatives — add greatly to this type of knowledge, providing unequivocal support of our collective origins in East Africa and the migrations that subsequently populated the globe. And comparing our genomes with those of other organisms underscores what makes us distinctly human. Just considering our remarkable brains, it is striking that no other organism — including our closest living relative, the chimpanzee — has any semblance of humans’ capacity for mathematics, complex language, music, art, philosophy, or for pondering our place in the universe.
In addition, the combination of genetics and behavioral sciences has taught us that, in many cases, organisms that interact and are dependent on one another have co-evolved to benefit both species. In other words, we need each other on this earth. My favorite example is our best friend, the dog. In the last 15,000 to 30,000
years, it appears that we humans began to domesticate gray wolves that hung around our campsites, leading, over many generations, to the mutual benefits of protection for us and food for them. And look at us now! Dogs are usually considered close family members, and I am convinced that they can read us better than we can read each other. This almost certainly was influenced by genetic selection in both species, as well as by our remarkable brains — our ability to think, plan, and anticipate the consequences of our actions (or maybe it was the dogs’ plan all along!). In any case, dogs are also part of what makes us human. ***
When I joined the Human Genome Project in 1990 — tasked with helping to determine the first entire genetic makeup of a human being — the undertaking seemed so monumental that I mostly put my head down and focused on improving and applying the technology and organizing the teamwork needed to get the job done. But within a few years, it struck me that this work and its many applications were going to change the world profoundly. Identifying genes that cause disease became much faster and easier, and improved so much that what was a trickle of discoveries before is now a downpour.
Medically, I personally benefited from these advances by learning that variations in two of my genes make me have an unfavorable response to two classes of drugs, so my doctor changed my prescriptions based on this knowledge. As a human being, I have also learned to be much bolder in my imagination, to never say never, and to expect many more “aha” moments in my lifetime.
I see a not-too-distant future where much human suffering will be diminished by new treatments for diseases, where we will gain a deeper understanding of what makes us uniquely human, and where we will make even more advances in sustainable agriculture and our stewardship of our planet. For that to come to fruition, of course, requires the best that both the sciences and humanities offer. It also requires our collective commitment to keep asking questions, to keep learning, and to remember that humanity’s future, whatever it may be, is a destination we’ll all share together.
Richard Myers, Ph.D., is chief scientific officer, president emeritus, and faculty investigator at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville.
A Healing at the Forks
Descendants of an iconic Florence plantation explore a painful past
to bring hope to the present
By Javacia Harris Bowser
Every plot of land has a story.
In Florence, Alabama, stories of the land known as the Forks of Cypress often center on the awe-inspiring architecture of the house that once stood on the grounds.
The Forks of Cypress was a cotton plantation with a Greek Revival home near Florence in Lauderdale County, Alabama. Designed by architect William Nichols for James Jackson and his wife, Sally Moore Jackson, it was the only Greek Revival house in Alabama to feature a two-story colonnade around the entire house, composed of 24 Ionic columns. Construction of the Forks of Cypress mansion was completed in 1830, and the property got its name from the fact that Big Cypress Creek and Little Cypress Creek border the plantation and converge near the site of the main house.
People old enough to remember tell stories of where they were when lightning struck the mansion in 1966, sending all but those now-iconic columns up in flames.
But documentarian Frederick Murphy knows this history of the Forks of Cypress is incomplete. A more comprehensive account of the site includes stories of the enslaved people who were forced to work the land — people who include Murphy’s ancestors. And this is the story he, and others with ties to the Forks, aim to tell.
This year, descendants of both the enslaved people of the Forks of Cypress and descendants of plantation owners James and Sally Jackson are coming together to address their shared history. The group believes shared moments of honest conversation and connection can lead to reconciliation; that confronting the past can lead to healing and hope in the present. Support for the project — tentatively called The Echoes of the Forks of Cypress — will come, in part, from the Alabama Humanities Alliance’s Healing History initiative.
Together, the descendants will visit the cemetery at the Forks of Cypress where many of the enslaved people of the plantation were buried. They’ll visit the
churches that some of the enslaved people attended after emancipation. And they’ll sit down for a communal dinner. With assistance from the Alabama Historical Commission, which now owns and preserves the site, descendants will also conduct research to learn more about their ancestors.
Murphy’s interest in Florence was sparked when genealogical research led him to learn that one of his ancestors — Ferdinand Jackson — was born in the area. He hopes this ensuing project will encourage similar research and initiatives in other communities. Toward that end, he plans to document the group’s journey for a short film to be released in 2025.
“There’s a certain type of magnetic connection that we have here now because we're retracing the places in which our ancestors once lived and cultivated,” Murphy says. “It’s about taking up space and broadening the historical narrative that's already there, whether it's good, bad, ugly, or indifferent.”
Healing history
The Echoes of the Forks of Cypress aligns closely with AHA’s Healing History initiative, which is designed to strengthen communities by helping Alabamians examine their shared history and build connections across racial, religious, or political differences. The Healing History initiative, for example, funded another film documenting similar work done by Black and White descendants of the Wallace House plantation in Alabama’s Shelby County.
“We're at a place not just in our state, but as a nation, where there are glaring divisions that seem to be keeping us from moving forward as people,” says Laura Anderson, AHA’s director of partnerships and outcomes. “But we know that history can be a tool for moving forward, together. So, we call Healing History an initiative — not a program we run ourselves — because we want communities to find their own way into it.”
Murphy has also relied heavily on the archives and expertise of local cultural nonprofits, such as the
Florence-Lauderdale Public Library and Florence Arts and Museums.
“I think this is probably some of the most important work that we can support from the museum's perspective,” says Brian Murphy, director of Florence Arts and Museums.
Frederick and Brian Murphy (unrelated) met during Frederick’s initial research about the Forks of Cypress. In 2021, Brian invited Frederick and his cousin, Karen Baynham Curry, to give a talk at the Florence Indian Mound Museum. Their presentation explored the connection between the enslaved Jackson family at the Forks of Cypress and those enslaved at the Cabin Row Plantation located in Montgomery County, Tennessee, which is where Frederick Murphy was born.
Eventually, Brian Murphy hopes to put together an exhibit at Pope’s Tavern Museum that honors the enslaved people of Forks of Cypress by amplifying the voices of their descendants.
“There’re a lot of artifacts from that historical site at the museum, but hardly anything from enslaved people,” Brian Murphy says. “We’re really trying to flip that script and bring in more voices, but we want to do that responsibly, and I think the best way to do that is to get as many descendants involved as possible and really let them lead.”
Brian also connected Frederick to Curtis Flowers, a great-great-great-granddaughter of James and Sarah Jackson. She was eager to be part of The Echoes of the Forks of Cypress project, and was “swept away” by the depth of their research. Flowers hopes that The Echoes of the Forks of Cypress will inspire other communities
in Alabama and beyond to pursue similar projects.
“It’s connecting with and talking to real people whose lives have been shaped by this place and to try to understand and hear things from another point of view,” Flowers says. “What better way is there than to talk about doing something positive in a divided world?”
Frederick Murphy is grateful for the collaboration with Flowers.
“She has played a tremendous role in validating previous research and providing insight from the angle of her ancestors,” Frederick Murphy says of Flowers.
When he visited Florence, he and Flowers became fast friends over plates of her lasagna.
“It was the epitome of Southern hospitality — breaking bread and having conversation that required empathy, inquisitiveness, and critical thinking,” Murphy says. “We are forever connected.”
Looking back and moving forward
Frederick Murphy isn’t just a filmmaker; he’s also a licensed mental health counselor. And his Forks of Cypress film is part of a long line of projects he’s done exploring historical trauma in African American communities, as well as the healing power of knowing your history. His work includes a pair of films — one exploring the lives of less-heralded Jim Crow survivors, the other addressing race and reconciliation. His work is also part of Clotilda: The Exhibition at the Africatown Heritage House in Mobile.
Most recently (and with support from AHA’s sister organization, Humanities Tennessee), Murphy helped
Left: Plantation house at the Forks of Cypress. Courtesy Florence Arts and Museums. Right: Descendants of the Forks today: Cousins Karen Baynham Curry and Frederick Murphy with Curtis Flowers.
to curate King Iron, a traveling exhibit created by the Tennessee African American Historical Group that examines the little-known story of enslaved iron workers of Tennessee. Many of these workers also had ties to the Forks of Cypress.
Some might question how history — especially history centered on slavery, forced migration, and the generational inequities they produced — can help people move forward.
But for Murphy, studying slavery and segregation isn’t just about examining stories of oppression. It’s about uncovering stories of resilience, stories of people who persevered and built community against all odds.
“If we don't have access to research that and tap into that whenever we're having a hard time, then I feel like it's very difficult for us to heal and have a true depiction of the beauty that we all hold inside,” Murphy says.
Indeed, that healing is for all. Because examining our past is about conversation, not conflict. And conversations don’t need to be hostile to be honest.
“This isn't the Hatfields and McCoys,” he says. “We're here to share information to further our humanity and further our educational palate and understanding.”
And from this foundation, bonds can be built.
We’ve all heard the adage that those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it. But AHA’s Laura Anderson believes the importance of history is even more personal than that.
“I didn't feel comfortable on the earth until I understood history and my own personal place and my family's place in it,” she says. “It brought such a strong sense of rootedness, like I could handle anything after I understood the context in which my life was taking place.”
It’s this same sense of grounding that Murphy wishes for the descendants of the Forks of Cypress and beyond.
“We hope to screen this film in multiple communities, not just in Alabama,” he says, “because this isn’t just an Alabama story. It's a nationwide story.”
AHA’s Healing History initiative
You don’t have to look very hard these days to see the distrust and divisions in our communities. But we believe those divides can be bridged — and that the past can move us forward.
AHA’s Healing History initiative is designed to strengthen our communities, workforces, and state by helping Alabamians examine their shared history and get to know each other better. Across race, religion, politics, and all the supposed dividing lines that shouldn’t keep us apart.
The initiative launched in the fall of 2023, thanks to seed funding from partners such as the Alabama Legislature, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Regions Bank. We are thrilled to support communityinitiated projects like the Forks of Cypress and public events like Woven Together (see page 51). But the core of this initiative pairs history with facilitated group conversations to explore what we have in common, while acknowledging — with civility — what divides us.
“Healing History is not just about the past. It is about the present and what futures we will start writing for ourselves today,” says Kathy Boswell, AHA’s Healing History coordinator.
The entry point to the initiative is an immersive experience called Past Forward, which takes participants on a specific walk through history. Participants learn how policies from the past can still affect our communities and our relationships with neighbors and colleagues today.
“We’re looking at how we got so divided,” Boswell shares. “Not who is to blame, but what are the contributing factors to our divisions today? And what can close those divides? It’s the relationships we make with each other. It’s sharing stories. Asking questions. Suspending judgment. Having the courage to listen.”
AHA also has begun offering half-day and whole-day Healing Circles that allow people to connect, share, learn, and be curious across differences. Most exciting of all, AHA and the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham started a 10-month cohort experience this year that expands on the Healing Circle model. Since February 2024, 22 individuals have been meeting on a monthly basis to build relationships and bridge divides.
“The impact has been amazing,” Boswell says. “This group has spent time, listening deeply and creating a space of courage to share their stories. Understanding has been the key. Not persuasion. Not arguments. Just by sharing and listening, individuals are moving past assumptions and hearing the truth about one another. People are seeing each other differently. There’s respect. There’s dignity. And, best of all, new friendships.”
Join us: alabamahumanities.org/healing-history
Cousins Karen Baynham Curry and Frederick Murphy, descendants of Ferdinand Jackson, enslaved at the Forks.
CONGRATULATIONS
“The
| Dr. Leah Rawls Atkins, Founding Director
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Colonel Brian E. Vaughn serves as the Wing Commander of the 187th Fighter Wing at Dannelly Field, Alabama, managing over 1,400 personnel and 22 F-16C+ Fighting Falcons to support state and federal missions, along with aid to four separate units. Commissioned in 1996 from Auburn University’s ROTC, he completed his pilot training in Mississippi and has accumulated over 3,000 flight hours across more than 25 years in both the Active Duty Air Force and Air National Guard. Col. Vaughn’s distinguished career includes roles such as Lead Project Officer for T-38C programs, Flight Commander, Instructor Pilot, Maintenance Squadron and Group Commander, and Vice Commander of the 187th Fighter Wing.
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2023 in Review
The humanities, for a better Alabama
We see a future for a better Alabama by nurturing the best in us as people. Our work is a public service that promotes lifelong learning, strong communities, a healthy democracy, and prosperity for all Alabamians.
55 grants awarded
757 live events and public projects**
233 humanities scholars engaged**
Program highlights
Alabama Colloquium
Our 2023 signature event took place in Birmingham, where we honored a pair of award-winning scholars as our newest Alabama Humanities Fellows: David Mathews and Imani Perry.
Homegoing read
Our “learning from literature” series considered the power of knowing our roots, via the novel Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi, the Ghanaian American author who grew up in Huntsville.
$342,491 grant funding
$20,000 teacher and student scholarships*
375,381 Alabamians reached statewide**
At the Crossroads
The Smithsonian traveling exhibit Crossroads toured five locations statewide, offering a chance for Alabamians to consider the past, present, and future of our rural communities.
*Jenice Riley Memorial Scholarships, National History Day student scholarships. **AHA original programming and grantee programming combined.
Inked & Echoed
We partnered with the inaugural FOOD+Culture Festival to present a celebration of Southern food stories, featuring writers, poets, growers, and chefs from across the state.
Art: "Rivers of Alabama," by Marla Hope Kenney.
AHA Honor Roll | 2023
Thank you to all who made our programming possible across 2023. AHA’s work is a public service to the state, promoting lifelong learning, strong communities, and a healthy democracy. The humanities enrich our lives and bring us together. And they provide a human-centric underpinning to economic development across our state.
With your help, we can build a solid foundation for our next 50 years. Donate today at alabamahumanities.org/support.
Individual Donors
Laura Caldwell Anderson
Bob Barnett
Martha Bouyer
Alice M. Bowsher
Beverly Boyd
Chandra Brown Stewart
R. Frank Brown Jr.
Julian D. Butler
David Campbell
Donna Castellano
Charles T. Clayton Jr.
Diane Clouse
Charles A. Collat Sr.
Robert J. Collins
James Conely
Kathryn Corey
Judith Cox
Armand DeKeyser
Samuel A. Denham
David Donaldson
W. Howard Donovan III
Beverly B. Erdreich
Wayne Flynt
Jack Geren
Robert Girardeau
R. David Glasgow
Miller Gorrie
Sally M. Greenhaw
Judith Hayes Hand
Ben Harris
Ralph G. Holberg III
Reginald T. and Anne Hamner
Robert S. Holberg
Mary D. Hubbard
Dorothy Huston
Earl and Sylvia Johnson
Phillip Jordan
William & Jeanetta Keller
Jay Lamar
Judith Link
Clay J. Loftin
Michael Markus
William Martin
Wilbur W. Masters
Louise McPhillips
Nancy A. Miller-Borg
Ed Mizzell
Mark D. Nelson
Martin T. Olliff
Barbara Patterson
Martha Pezrow
John Lee Prewitt
Ed Richardson
John E. Rochester
Sam Rumore
Bethany Rushing
Daphne Simpkins
Pam Smith
Oliver Smyth III
Larry P. Spangler
Mary S. Stewart
Samuel J. and Pat Tumminello
Peter Tyler
James F. Vickrey Jr.
Charlie D. Waldrep
David Walker
Andy and Lisa Weil
Alabama Commission on
Higher Education
Alabama Historical Association
Alabama Power Foundation
Alabama Public Television
Alabama Society Sons of the American Revolution
Auburn University at Montgomery
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama
The Caring Foundation
Coca-Cola UNITED
Daniel Foundation of Alabama
David Mathews Center for
Civic Life
Federation of State Humanities Councils
Friends of the
Alabama Archives
Interstate Character Council, Inc.
Medical Properties Trust
National Endowment for the Humanities
National Maritime Historical Society
Northeast Alabama Community College
Poarch Band of Creek Indians
Protective Life Foundation
Regions Bank
Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Stephens Foundation
University of Alabama
Viva Health
Vulcan Materials Company
the Arts & Humanities
Doris Stanley
Memorial Library
Eufaula Carnegie Library
Florence Lauderdale
Public Library
Foley Public Library
Friends of the Dadeville Library
Gadsden Public Library
General Sumter Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution
Helen Keller Public Library
Homewood Public Library
Jasper Public Library
Lineville City Library
Lowndes Interpretive Center, National Park Service
Mobile Public Library
Monroe County
Heritage Museum
Mt. Laurel Library
Alabama Folklife Association
Alabama State Council on the Arts
Alabama Public Television
Alabama Department of Archives and History
Ann Rudd Art Center
Annie L. Awbrey
Public Library
Autauga-Prattville Public Library
Auburn University at Montgomery
Bessemer Public Library
Birmingham Public Library
Blount County
Memorial Museum
Boaz Public Library
Caroline Marshall
Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities
Chambers County Library
Crenshaw County
Historical Society
Dale County Council for
Muscle Shoals Public Library
National History Day
North Huntsville
Public Library
North Shelby Library
O’Neal Library
Ozark Dale County Library
Public Library of Anniston and Calhoun County
Sheffield Public Library
Temple Beth El
Thomas Norton Public Library
Triana Historical Society
Triana Public Library
Unitarian Universalist
Congregation of the Shoals
Vulcan Park and Museum
Wallace Center for Arts & Reconciliation
Westminster Village
White Smith
Memorial Library
Upcoming Events
August 26, 2024
Alabama Colloquium in Huntsville, celebrating AHA’s first 50 years and honoring musicians Brittany Howard and Jason Isbell. Von Braun Center, Huntsville.
September 11-14, 2024
Doing History, the annual conference of the American Association for State and Local History, sponsored by AHA. Mobile Convention Center, Mobile.
September 19-22, 2024
FOOD+Culture Festival featuring an AHA literary showcase of Alabama authors, poets, and artists. Pepper Place, Birmingham.
September 26, 2024
The Art of Healing, a 'Woven Together' event, featuring Dr. Gail Christopher. Presented by AHA, the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham, and Birmingham Jewish Federation. The Fennec, Birmingham.
October 1-2, 2024
Alabama History Day teacher workshop, presented in partnership with National History Day and supported by the Bezos Family Foundation. Mobile County Schools Professional Development Center, Mobile.
October 4, 2024
Alabama History Day at Mount Meigs. Presented in partnership with the Alabama Writers Forum and Alabama Department of Youth Services’ Mt. Meigs Campus. Montgomery County.
December 2, 2024
Alabama Colloquium in Birmingham, celebrating AHA’s first 50 years and honoring writer Rick Bragg and humorist Roy Wood Jr. Alys Stephens Center, Birmingham.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama is proud to support community events that promote the well-being of Alabamians, both physically and mentally. We continue to be committed to providing tools and resources to help you lead a healthier, happier life.
Learn more about feeling healthier and happier at AlabamaBlue.com/Happy.
Grants Roundup
In 2023, the Alabama Humanities Alliance awarded 55 grants totaling more than $342,000 to support public humanities programs across the state. Collectively, this funding helps to promote a greater appreciation and understanding of our history, literature, philosophy, culture, civics, and more.
Did You Know: AHA serves as the primary source of grants for public humanities projects statewide, offering monthly Mini Grants (up to $2,500), triannual Major Grants (up to $10,000), and annual Media Grants (up to $15,000).
Read on to learn how our 2023 grant recipients helped Alabamians to share their stories. To link our past to the present. And to connect more Alabamians with each other and the vibrant, diverse communities we call home.
MINI GRANTS
Southern Studies Conference 2023
Auburn University at Montgomery | Montgomery
The Southern Studies Conference is an annual, interdisciplinary gathering of scholars of the American South. It features works on the South’s politics, history, literature, art, and more. Lecturers deliver plenary addresses regarding a topic of
their expertise. Montgomery artist Michelle Browder delivers a keynote conference lecture.
Asian American and Pacific Islander
Heritage Month
Florence-Lauderdale
Public Library | Florence
During the month of May, the Florence-Lauderdale
Public Library hosts a series of lectures and programs to explore various aspects
of Asian American culture, including art, history, and music. This programming series is supplemented by educational posters from the Smithsonian exhibit, “I want the Wide American Earth: An Asian Pacific American Story.”
Higher Ground Society
Podcast – Season 3
Higher Ground Society | Auburn
Capitalizing on the success of its two previous seasons,
the Higher Ground Society Podcast continues its engaging conversations with Alabama creatives and thinkers who contribute to Alabama’s social and cultural development.
‘Kudzu Soliloquy’ Public Programs
Wiregrass Museum of Art | Dothan
Wiregrass Museum of Art presents four programs that explore art history and
Sheki Tsanglao (far right) talks with Hai Tran and Shin Myat Hla at the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library, as part of an AHA-funded panel conversation on the theme, “I want the Wide American Earth: An Asian Pacific American Story.”
“The Alabama Humanities Alliance is a tremendous asset for our state. Without their support, this incredible symposium, and so many other events like it, would not have been possible. What a difference they make!”
-Grant recipient: University of North Alabama (Florence) Project: “Our Story: An Alabama Writers’ Symposium”
context, folklore, history, and heritage relating to themes of Southern identity, with an emphasis on aesthetic elements of the Southern Gothic nature of the American South. These programs provide humanitiesbased conversations to correspond with the exhibition “Kudzu Soliloquy,” on view April 20 – June 24, 2023.
“Spider Martin – Selma to Montgomery” March Panel Discussion
Friends of the Birmingham Public Library | Birmingham
In conjunction with the exhibition, “Spider Martin – Selma to Montgomery,” the library hosts a panel discussion featuring University of Alabama historian Stacy Morgan in conversation with Brown Chapel AME Church historian Joyce O’Neal and fellow Selma foot soldier Dianne Harris. Open to the public, live-streamed, and professionally recorded for future viewers.
2023 Miss Juneteenth Scholarship Pageantry Program
The Maynard 4 Foundation | Daphne
This program is a unique experience for young ladies nationwide between the ages of 13-18, which aims to deepen the understanding of African and Black/African
American history and culture. As we reflect on the meaning of Juneteenth, many don’t know that Mobile is the home of the last slave ship, the Clotilda. Participants learn about its discovery and the development of Africatown. They also engage in a series of workshops over the course of four days.
Legacies of Slavery with Myra Davis-Branic, Frye Gaillard, and Kern Jackson
University of South Alabama | Mobile
This project brings together three important figures to consider the shared racial history of the South in public conversations about race and place. These filmed conversations take place in significant buildings in Mobile. Short commentaries on place are also filmed, with transcripts and resources provided online by the McCall Library at the University of South Alabama.
Comparative Interpretation of Robin Hood Folktales in English and Korean
A-KEEP | Montgomery
A-KEEP offers Montgomery County students and residents a comparative literature presentation of folktales with very similar themes: Robin Hood vs. Hong Gil-dong. Robin Hood is one of popular culture’s most
enduring folk heroes and is often used to describe a heroic outlaw or rebel against tyranny. Each storyline carries a very different cultural perspective that describes and explains why the protagonist becomes a ‘community hero.’
Asa Mendelsohn: Considering Power, Place, and What it Takes to Change Vinegar | Birmingham
This twofold project (community workshop and panel discussion) addresses themes of place-based organizing and coalitionbuilding across social issues. These issues are addressed in a film, Pasture, by artist Asa Mendelsohn, that considers power, place, and what it takes to change. The panel features Mendelsohn alongside local experts and scholars.
Lamplight Speaker Series Sand Mountain Cooperative Education Center | Guntersville
This free civics and leadership summer program for teens features a lineup of speakers telling and discussing folk tales from Alabama and around the world. Sharing nearly-forgotten folk tales with a younger generation helps expand their knowledge, build community, and bring back the tradition of storytelling.
Summer 2023: Archaeology Camp at The Ridge
The Ridge Macon County Archaeology Project | Warrior Stand
The Ridge Project’s three-day summer camp for eighth graders from Tuskegee Institute Middle School focuses on history and archaeology. It offers
opportunities to practice basic archaeological excavation and interpretation methods. It also offers activities focused on the area’s Indigenous inhabitants and each of the cultural groups who migrated to our area during the era of Alabama Fever. The goal is to convey that artifacts can tell stories to illuminate the history of the region and its past inhabitants.
Westward Expansion & the Buffalo Soldiers
Tri-State Expo Juneteenth Affairs | Dothan Westward Expansion & the Buffalo Soldiers is a panel composed of knowledgeable and scholarly experts in the field of history as it pertains to African American studies and historical events of the 1860s in the United States. The panel discusses documented evidence of how and why Congress commissioned the 9th & 10th Calvary Regiments to journey to the uncharted Western territory and develop trails for early settlers and homesteaders of the 1860s.
Exploring Our Linguistic Identities
Auburn Public Library |
Auburn
“Exploring Our Linguistic Identities” brings the local community together to engage in exploration, reflection, and dialogue about language, culture, and identity. Participants discover new ways of understanding their linguistic identities, make connections with other community members, and situate themselves in the larger global linguistic and cultural context. The event is led by humanities scholars who use their expertise and experience to guide the audience through an engaging time of exploration.
Amal Walks Across America: Birmingham
Create Birmingham | Birmingham
Create Birmingham and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute partner on a public art and participatory educational event for schools and the community at large as part of Amal Walks Across America — a national tour centered around the journey of Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee searching for her mother. The youth-led event at BCRI draws parallels between her story and Birmingham’s history, shining a light on the role of children in the struggle for human rights.
Flow Tuscaloosa Council of Tuscaloosa County | Tuscaloosa
Flow Tuscaloosa is an interdisciplinary and
environmental humanities and public art project that centers the history and ecology of the region through the story of Hurricane Creek, a historic and ecologically important tributary of the Black Warrior River.
Laws of Life Essay Competition 2023-2024
BBB Educational
Foundation | Mobile
The Laws of Life essay competition is an academic activity that encourages dialogue among high school students, teachers, humanities scholars, and business leaders to advance positive, ethical principles such as transparency, humility, honesty, equity, and proactivity. These values are life-affirming and support positive citizenship. Through this project, students also talk to a business or community leader, utilizing skills and
knowledge gained from interactions with humanities scholars.
More-Than-Human World
Samford University | Birmingham “More-Than-Human World,” an exhibition currently on view at the Samford Art Gallery, features the work of 30 adult artists on the autism spectrum who are affiliated with the local arts nonprofit, Studio By The Tracks. Authors and scholars are brought to the show to engage with the exhibition, the featured artists, Samford, and the wider community about the importance of supporting, listening to, and learning from neurodivergent perspectives.
Nekola Public Lecture on Observing Elections Around the World
Troy University | Troy Czech political scientist Martin Nekola speaks to students and the Troy community about his experiences observing eight national elections in Europe and Asia for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
AfricanAmericanArt History.com
Alabama State University | Montgomery
Under the guidance of a humanities scholar, this digital humanities project engages HBCU studentscholars in research on African American art history and connects their research to the broader community through a public, scholarled symposium, “African American Artists of Alabama and the Nation.” The resulting research is featured in an online resource,
'Amal' is a larger-than-life puppet that depicts a young Syrian refugee searching for her mother. The AHA-funded 'Amal Walks America' event, presented by Create Birmingham and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, drew parallels between Amal’s story and Birmingham’s history, shining a light on the role of children in the struggle for human rights.
AfricanAmericanArtHistory. com, which is accessible globally to anyone interested in learning more about African American art history.
Men of Change Talk with Shaun Leonardo and Stacy Morgan Friends Foundation of the Birmingham Public Library | Birmingham
In conjunction with the traveling Smithsonian exhibition "Men of Change", jointly presented at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and Birmingham Public Library, the library will host an online discussion between artist Shaun Leonardo and University of Alabama professor Stacy Morgan — focusing on the history of Black public figures as introduced in the exhibition and how portrayals of those individuals and others in art and literature shape our perception of ourselves and others.
Gullah Geechee: History
Tri-State Expo
Juneteenth Affairs | Dothan
This project helps to educate the public on the culture, contributions, and experiences of the Southeast’s Gullah Geechee community. The project also addresses the racial violence directed toward, and the tactical dehumanization of, West Africans.
Deeply Placed Art
Exhibition Guest Scholars
Samford University | Birmingham This exhibition asks the viewer to contemplate what it means to be present when the life we live moves untethered between a physical and digital universe. The featured artists observe and draw these two parts of our lives, tracing the footprints we leave. Using digital tools like video, laser
“Thanks to AHA…instead of having ‘just an exhibit’ in our gallery, we can engage a scholar to talk about the historical and philosophical significance of that exhibit.”
-Grant recipient: Shelby County Arts Council (Columbiana) Project: "Mark Sloan and Jerry Siegel on the History of Photographing the South"
cutters, and 3D scanners and printers, these artists extend the art of mark making. Guest scholars provide interdisciplinary insights.
On A Nearby Hill
United Federation for
Artistic Minds | Huntsville
This is a community event commemorating the U.S. 10th Cavalry Unit, otherwise known as the Buffalo Soldiers. After the Civil War, the 10th U.S. Cavalry was ordered to New York, then to Camp Albert G. Forse in Huntsville, Alabama. From October 18, 1898, until January 28, 1899, the Black Buffalo Soldiers were not allowed to camp with the White soldiers — so they camped on a hill nearby, now known as Cavalry Hill. This three-day event includes a keynote speaker, history tours, visual displays, and a Cavalry Hill military camp reenactment, all in Huntsville.
2024
Alabama
Authors Day
History Blakeley Authority | Spanish Fort
A yearly event celebrating the literary arts, Alabama Authors Day showcases the work of accomplished writers throughout the state and provides a forum for discussion of the topics they have investigated. The program particularly emphasizes projects associated with Gulf Coast cultural and natural heritage.
The Booker T. Washington Effect: Audrey’s Story
The Penny Foundation | Birmingham
Audrey Bacon Byrd captured what it meant to be a Black American in the 20th century. Likely the granddaughter of formerly enslaved persons, Byrd's life spanned her childhood in San Antonio, college days at Tuskegee, many years teaching in Chicago, and finally settling in Northern California, where she would eventually reunite with a lost love. The Penny Foundation is creating a comprehensive documentary film series chronicling Byrd's fascinating life and highlighting her ancestors and descendants.
MAJOR GRANTS
History
of LGBTQ Art in the Birmingham Community
Birmingham AIDS Outreach | Birmingham Birmingham AIDS Outreach presents an art exhibition, reception, and panel about art created by, or for, the LGBTQ community in Birmingham. Subjects of the photographical essays are invited to stand by the work they’re featured in — to offer their thoughts about what the project means to them and what it was like to work with the artist. The exhibit also includes interpretive, informational signage.
Let’s Talk about Racial Reconciliation 2023
Building Bridges Institute for Racial Reconciliation | Tuscaloosa
This symposium on racial reconciliation features a humanities scholar as a keynote speaker, a panel discussion by five humanities scholars, a question-andanswer session, and an open conversation, with refreshments. The focus of the event is to invite inclusive dialogue and to build an understanding of this complex world in terms of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The ultimate goal is to build empathy towards diverse perspectives and experiences.
Birmingham LGBTQ History Bus
Invisible Histories Project | Birmingham
The Invisible Histories Project partners with Central Alabama Pride to celebrate 45 years of Pride festivals with a day of bus tours highlighting Birmingham’s LGBTQ history. The tour takes place during Pride’s two-week June calendar and consists of 14 historical stops around the city.
Book Readings and Discussions with the author of The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church | Birmingham
A collaboration between the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, 16th Street Baptist Church, Historic Bethel Baptist Church, St. Paul United Methodist Church, and the University of Illinois Center for Children’s Books. This collective effort brings Christopher Paul Curtis, author of the Newberry Honor-winning
conversation as part of the
book, The Watsons Go To Birmingham-1963, to Birmingham as part of 60th anniversary commemorations of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.
Fitz Tales: The Writings of Scott and Zelda
Fitzgerald
Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum Association | Montgomery Fitz Tales: The Writings of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald is the third installment of the Fitz Tales series and features the writings of both Scott and Zelda from the early 1920s. In addition to writing short stories, both Scott and Zelda were popular magazine writers, and this series offers a mix of their short stories and some of the humorous essays they wrote together and separately dispensing Jazz Age wisdom on such topics as marriage, travel, writing, and even cooking.
Spanish Beowulf in Graphic Novels
Troy University | Troy
This is a public humanities event aimed at improving the level of engagement with the medieval poem Beowulf, and exploring issues regarding translation into modern languages such as Spanish, as well as translations into other media such as graphic novels. The event features a public panel discussion involving award-winning graphic novelist Santiago García, medieval scholar Richard Scott Nokes, and Spanish-
language scholars Kelly Suero and Johanna Alberich.
The Last Slave Ship Voices
Clotilda Descendants Association | Mobile
The Clotilda Descendants Association hosts author Hannah Durkin, independent researcher and former lecturer at Newcastle University in the U.K., for a discussion of her book, The Survivors of the Clotilda: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the American Slave Trade. Unique to this publication are the stories of survivors who have never been identified as Clotilda survivors. This event is part of the Spirit of Our Ancestors Festival and is free and open to the public.
There IS A Balm In Gilead: Healing From the Events of 1963
Historic Bethel Baptist Church Community Restoration Fund | Birmingham
This year, the City of Birmingham commemorates sixty years since the Birmingham campaign for civil and human rights. As a part of the events, The Historic Bethel Baptist Church of Birmingham, Alabama, is pleased to announce: “There IS A Balm in Gilead: Healing From The Events of 1963.” The conference kicks off with a field study of key sites of memory followed by two powerful days of interactive sessions.
Engaging
Educators and Our Storytellers in Improving Local Teaching of Civil Rights History
Kids in Birmingham 1963 | Birmingham
Kids in Birmingham 1963 engages three educators to create and pilot lessons that teach civil rights history in a variety of subjects, such as music, science, and math. Each lesson uses kids' stories, lending humanities scholars’ voices to interpret the history. To share the lessons widely, teachers are filmed describing the history conveyed in their lessons; and a web-based sorting feature facilitates educators’ efforts to identify the most relevant lessons.
The Scottsboro Boys Museum’s Traveling Exhibition
Scottsboro Multicultural Foundation | Scottsboro
This project brings The Scottsboro Boys Museum to the rest of Alabama.
In November 2022, The Scottsboro Boys Museum reopened with a renovated and reimagined interior. As part of the museum’s mission to educate the public on this seminal civil rights case, a display of traveling exhibits on portable banners stand alongside original artwork recently acquired by the museum from Huntsville, Birmingham, and Montgomery.
Oral Histories Filming
The Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr. Institute | Montgomery
The Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr. Institute Oral History
Project captures stories, memories, and accounts of events from people who knew, worked with, or were affected by the rulings of Judge Frank Johnson. The objective is to preserve these stories for future historical and educational use, as resources on the life and times of Judge Frank Johnson and the civil rights cases that changed the course of America.
Humanity in the Space of Prison
Auburn University | Auburn Alabama Prison Arts + Education continues its mission of providing educational opportunities for people who are incarcerated across the state of Alabama.
With this specific project, AHA’s funding supports three semester-length classes in the humanities, including subjects ranging from music history and Indigenous peoples’ histories to philosophy. These classes create pathways to lifelong learning.
2024 Food for Thought and Programming
Friends of the Alabama Archives | Montgomery
Food for Thought is a monthly Alabama history lecture series held on the third Thursday at noon in
A
"In Solidarity" Civil Rights Experience at Birmingham's Temple Beth El.
the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Food for Thought presentations feature humanities scholars discussing a wide variety of topics relating to the state of Alabama. Similar to Food for Thought, the quarterly Book Talk series focuses on publications about Alabama history, culture, or archival work. A Juneteenth program commemorates the holiday and focuses on Black history.
Southern Jewish Voices Levite Jewish Community Center | Birmingham Southern Jewish Voices provides a platform that unites and educates the Birmingham community through the act of storytelling and the sharing of oral history. The program creates opportunities for both telling and documenting first-hand stories related to the unique experience of being someone who is Jewish and living in the South. By videoing each session, each participant’s story is shared in a widereaching way.
Project Threadways Oral Histories
Project Threadways | Florence
Project Threadways is growing its oral history program by adding new interviews that represent the diversity of textile workers; preparing the collection for archive; and sharing these important stories with the public, through an inperson event and a digital storytelling initiative. It is essential that these stories be accessible to a broad public to facilitate understanding of manufacturing processes, labor forces, race and class dynamics, small-town economics, and artisan craft.
Alabama Folk Podcast, Season Three: 6
Episodes to Elevate Alabama Folklife
Alabama Folklife Association | Mobile Season Three (6 episodes) of the Alabama Folk podcast elevates under-documented cultures and traditions, engages statewide audiences in Alabama folklife, and highlights emerging Alabama makers. The podcast is intended for general audiences and features interviews with Alabama traditional artists who carry on traditions passed down through the generations. Diverse in background, community, and art form, artists represent rural and urban experience and Indigenous and immigrant voices.
Flow Tuscaloosa 2024 Arts and Humanities Council of Tuscaloosa | Tuscaloosa
Flow Tuscaloosa is an interdisciplinary environmental humanities and public art project that centers the history and ecology of our region through the story of Hurricane Creek, a historic and ecologically important tributary of the Black Warrior River. This project implements humanities research previously conducted thanks to an AHA Mini Grant — to aid in our humanities and art-based community programming in the spring of 2024, including history talks and a lantern parade along Hurricane Creek.
Birmingham Jewish Merchants in the Civil Rights Movement
Audio Story
Congregation Beth-El | Birmingham
The Beth El Civil Rights Experience explores the
“Support from AHA helps us fight against forgetting; it helps us remember humanity in intensely dehumanizing spaces.”
-Grant recipient: Auburn University Project: Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project
intersections of Birmingham’s Jewish and civil rights histories. Participants can engage with this project through public programming and both audio and in-person tours. We’re creating an audio documentary, with history interns, focusing on the interaction between Jewish merchants and Birmingham’s civil rights movement. This is part of a broader initiative to increase online-accessible materials and present them at a public event.
Emancipation and the Struggle to Make Home: Public Lecture, Panel and Exhibit
Wallace Center for Arts and Reconciliation | Harpersville
The Wallace Center is creating a historical exhibit “Emancipation and the Struggle to Make Home,” based on the period 18651890, at the Wallace House in Harpersville. Programming includes a public lecture on this period in Harpersville, given by Elijah Gaddis, Ph.D., at the Datcher History House; a panel discussion titled “The Origins of Alabama’s Black Freedom Struggle, 1865-1890” in Birmingham; and three guided tours of the exhibit during its three-month exhibition period.
Go Tell it on Red Mountain — Continued
Red Mountain Park Foundation | Birmingham
This oral history project involves scholar-led conversations discussing Birmingham’s industrial history, various elements of
Red Mountain, and company town life. Each conversation features a scholar who has extensive knowledge of industrial history, paired with a moderator who is a humanities professional and complements the respective scholar’s research.
Do
Right: The Stallings Standard — Immersive Website
The University of Alabama | Tuscaloosa
This immersive website accompanies a new documentary and details Gene Stallings’ legacy as a national championship coach and his advocacy for the special-needs community. The website and numerous video stories solidify the fact that one Alabamian can make the world a better place by treating everyone fairly, no matter their physical or mental abilities. It will serve as a resource for families of parents who have children with special needs and anyone needing resources for advocating for individuals with special needs.
Popular Arts Conference
University of Alabama at Birmingham | Birmingham
UAB hosts a public two-day humanities and arts event that aims to engage with popular arts and media from a scholarly position. This symposium will address questions of relevance to both scholarly and popular audiences, including: What can we learn about society by studying popular arts? How are popular arts making relevant connections to the issues of today? How
can popular arts be used to communicate and connect through shared experiences?
Supporting Humanities Education in the Restorative Justice Lab University of North Alabama | Florence
The Restorative Justice Lab at the University of North Alabama is enhancing the humanities components of its restorative justice program, which are delivered at Limestone Correctional Facility. Restorative justice is often referred to as the “science of human relationships,” and we’re enhancing this program through new humanitiesbased coursework and extracurricular programming with AHA’s support.
2024 Durr Lecture Weekend
Virginia Durr Lecture Series | Montgomery
The Durr Lecture Weekend is an annual lecture series focusing on history, social justice, and democracy, inspired by the legacy of Clifford and Virginia Durr. The 2024 program features Barbara Phillips, J.D., a longtime voting rights lawyer and educator, and Hasan Jeffries, Ph.D., a leading historian of the civil rights movement. Phillips speaks about the 1965 Voting Rights Act and its current challenges. Jeffries speaks on the contemporary relevance of the civil rights movement.
“AHA’s award provided support beyond dollar amounts — it provided a foundation on which other funding institutions view our organizational mission as a priority worthy of recognition.”
-Grant recipient: Tri-State Expo Juneteenth Affairs (Dothan) Project: "Westward Expansion and the Buffalo Soldiers"
singer who overcame hardships to become a star of rhythm and blues. The film follows her rise to fame with hits like “Hound Dog,” her struggles during the decline of her career, and her lasting influence on popular musicians. Through rare archival footage and contemporary interviews, the documentary tells the story of Thornton’s remarkable journey and efforts to honor her legacy.
Honoring the Selma Bloody Sunday Foot Soldiers
Auburn University | Auburn
years ago. Over time, she has faced unprecedented challenges — from the first hydroelectric dam in Alabama that led to the greatest modern mass extinction in North American history, to the first graphite mine in North America in present times. She has also withstood waves of human civilization, from the Muscogee Creeks to the steamboat era and to lake life recreation. Her story has never been told in full…until now.
for reporting, editing, and production of a podcast series exploring the historic 1967 Dale’s Penthouse Fire. A community event at the Davis Theatre previews the podcast and includes panel discussions with historians and survivors, along with an audience member discussion on the fire’s impact. A multimedia presentation including historic audio and video, archival still images, and current comparative photography and video are also planned.
We Are Here: Digital Story Mapping African American Communities on the Eastern Shore University of South Alabama | Mobile
“We Are Here” creates a Digital Story Map of African American historical places on the Eastern Shore for a broad public audience. The map embeds short narratives and images on five geolocated sites, layered with audio excerpts from five to seven oral histories. USA McCall Library and Fairhope Public Library will preserve interviews and other research artifacts for public access. Free events invite community participation into the project and foster open discussion of the past. MEDIA
Big
Mama Thornton: Queen of the Blues
Alabama Educational Television Foundation Authority | Birmingham
Big Mama Thornton: Queen of the Blues is a documentary about the life of Willie Mae Thornton, a legendary
The Selma Bloody Sunday Foot Soldiers project seeks to share the full history of that event through the development of a dynamic and interactive web-based portal that features oral histories, access to neverbefore-shared historic photographs, and a virtual tour of the conflict site adjacent to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The goal is to share a full picture of Bloody Sunday and inspire the public with the heroism and dedication of the marchers in promoting fundamental civil liberties.
The Voice of the Coosa Coosa Riverkeeper | Birmingham
The Coosa River has a story dating back 85-plus million
Birmingham’s Living Room: Cities, Greenspaces, and the Story of Railroad Park Railroad Park Foundation | Birmingham
“Every city has something really essential hiding in plain sight waiting to be valued and revealed by those who know it well and those who never saw it before.” This is how Tom Leader describes the vision required to bring Birmingham’s Railroad Park to life. The transformation of a district of gravel lots, warehouses, and train car storage into a vibrant park epitomizes the history of the city parks in American life. This film is about the power of greenspace to transform industrial-age cities.
“Meet Me at Dale’s” Troy University | Troy The project includes support
AHA funds all grants through federal support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Explore Science, Pre-Med, Humanities, Arts, Pre-Law, and Social Sciences Programs at Tuskegee University’s College
of Arts and Sciences
BACHELOR’S DEGREES
• Biology
• Chemistry*
• Communication
• English*
• History
• Liberal Studies
• Mathematics
• Music
• Philosophy*
• Physics*
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Social Work
• Sociology
• Bachelor of Liberal Studies (LIBS) Online Option
MASTER AND DOCTORAL PROGRAMS
• Master of Science in Chemistry
• Master of Science in Biology
• Master of General Psychology
• Master of Arts in Educational
• Psychology and Counseling
• Online Master of Social Work (MSW)
• Integrative Biosciences (IBS) Ph.D. Program
• Integrative Public Policy and Development (IPPD) Ph.D. Program
Once the World Was Perfect
By Joy Harjo
Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world. Then we took it for granted.
Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind. Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head. And once Doubt ruptured the web, All manner of demon thoughts Jumped through—
We destroyed the world we had been given For inspiration, for life—
Each stone of jealousy, each stone Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light. No one was without a stone in his or her hand. There we were, Right back where we had started. We were bumping into each other In the dark.
And now we had no place to live, since we didn’t know How to live with each other.
Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another And shared a blanket.
A spark of kindness made a light. The light made an opening in the darkness. Everyone worked together to make a ladder.
A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world, And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children, And their children, all the way through time— To now, into this morning light to you.
Reprinted from Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems by Joy Harjo. Copyright © 2015 by Joy Harjo. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
Joy Harjo is a writer and poet of the Mvskoke (Creek) Nation. She served as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2019-2022 and received the Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer at the 2023 Monroeville Literary Festival.
The Scenic Route, by Heather Logan.