Welcome to the Alabama Humanities Alliance

We celebrate thinking. We encourage inquiry. We live for surprising discoveries. We exist to join together those who hunger for knowledge and create a sense of belonging among those who desire to learn. We are more than an organization — we are an alliance of thinkers. We are the Alabama Humanities Alliance.

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Thinkers Wanted

Calling all thinkers, learners, and aspirers. We challenge you to be more curious, confront your assumptions, dare to investigate, and never stop asking “Why?” Come with us on a quest to learn, every day. Join the Alliance.

Programs

AHA gives all Alabamians opportunities to explore the humanities through funded public programs such as seminars, workshops, lectures, exhibitions, documentaries, and more.

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Grants

AHA is the primary source of grants for public humanities programs, and we collaborate with other organizations to advance the humanities in both the academic and public arenas.

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Mosaic

Mosaic is AHA's flagship publication, featuring stories that highlight how the humanities uplift communities statewide. Read the latest issue and sign up for free delivery!

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$800K for cultural nonprofits statewide

83 grantees receive Alabama Humanities Recovery Grants

This September, the Alabama Humanities Alliance awarded $800,000 in one-time funding to 83 humanities-based nonprofits across the state. These grants supply much-needed support to many of Alabama’s most cherished cultural landmarks and community resources as they continue to recover from the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Alabama Humanities Recovery Grants are funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities through the federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.

Learn about our grantees

Feature story: Alabama's cultural currents

Alabama’s waterways reveal a more complex story of our state’s history.

"Fifty years ago, as a newly hired history prof at Samford University, my specialty was supposed to be Russian history. It was the rivers of Alabama, as much as anything else, that changed the focus..."

Read the full story

Feature story: The power of place, memory, song

A reflection on the Freedom Rides of 1961.

"If they can do what they did, we can do what we need to do today. Even when it's hard. Even when we're tired and exhausted. Even when others don't care."

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Podcast: A Black Suffragist in the Jim Crow South

Episode One of our new podcast, "Why It Matters: Black Alabamians and the Vote."

"It's in these women's clubs and in the National Association of Colored Women where she's able to bring forth suffrage as a real issue..."

Listen to Episode One

Feature story: Sister acts

Siblings offer their perspective on why they compete in Alabama History Day.

"Bringing history to life by performing someone else's story allows me to experience a part of that individual's struggle and courage."

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Feature story: Toward democracy

Conversations and poetry that explore Black Alabamians' long fight for full participation in the electoral process.

"...mason dixon is an imagined line — you can theorize it, or wish it real, but it’s the same old ghost — see-through, benign. all y’all from alabama; we the wheel turning cotton to make the nation move. we the scapegoat in a land built from death..."

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Image of a stained glass window

Who we are: A letter from the director

AHA Executive Director Chuck Holmes offers an open invite to all Alabamians:

"We are an Alliance seeking and encouraging allies — anyone who treasures our shared culture, history, storytelling, lifelong learning, and sense of community."

Read the full column