AHA to honor Rick Bragg, Roy Wood Jr.

On December 2 in Birmingham, the Alabama Humanities Alliance (AHA) will recognize writer Rick Bragg and humorist Roy Wood Jr. as 2024 Alabama Humanities Fellows — the highest humanities honor in the state.

The two will be honored during a ticketed event at UAB’s Alys Stephens Center. The evening will feature an in-depth conversation between Bragg and Wood Jr., two of Alabama’s finest, and funniest, writers and storytellers. The event will also see additional individuals receive awards for supporting the humanities in Alabama, as well as a celebration of AHA’s 50th anniversary.

Additional special guests include:

• Kaitlan Collins, CNN anchor; our Colloquium moderator
• Devon Frazier, educator; founder, I See Me literacy nonprofit
• Cassandra King, award-winning author, past Alabama Humanities Fellow

EVENT DETAILS:

• WHAT: The Alabama Colloquium: Honoring Rick Bragg and Roy Wood Jr.
• WHERE: Alys Stephens Center’s Jemison Concert Hall | Birmingham
• WHEN: December 2, 2024 | 6:30 p.m.
• TICKETS: Available online, by phone, or in person via the UAB Box Office:
  my.alysstephens.org/3382 | 205.975.2787

Note: Copies of Rick Bragg’s books will be available for sale in the Alys Stephens Center lobby, thanks to our friends at Thank You Books.

ABOUT THE HONOREES:

While they utilize different mediums and styles, Bragg and Wood Jr. share something at their core: They are insightful storytellers who challenge us all to think, to empathize, and to explore what it means to be human.

Rick Bragg has long been lauded as one of the most distinct, illustrative storytellers in American literature. He’s authored more than a dozen books, but it’s his first, All Over but the Shoutin’, that became a sort of anthem for the people of the mountain South — and it is that regard, more than any award he has won, that Bragg holds most dear.

Still, the native of Possum Trot, Alabama, has won awards aplenty, including a Pulitzer Prize for reporting, as well as a James Beard Award, the Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer, and the Fitzgerald Literary Prize. For the past two decades, Bragg has also served as the Clarence Cason Professor of Writing at the University of Alabama

In an essay for AHA’s Mosaic magazine, the author Cassandra King — and Alabama Humanities Fellow herself — had this to say about Rick Bragg:

Rick’s works aren’t just important, they’re the essence of why we need the bond of storytelling today more than ever.

King also noted something that applies as much to Wood Jr. as it does to Bragg: “There is a commonality in our stories,” King wrote, “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.”

Roy Wood Jr. mines both past and present for his material as a comedian, writer, and producer. The Birmingham native got his feet wet at 95.7 JAMZ-WBHJ before launching a career as a stand-up comic. He has released three specials, with a fourth due out in 2025, and became a nationally known satirist thanks to his eight-year-run on the Emmy-winning “The Daily Show.”

Wood Jr.’s father was the renowned civil rights journalist, Roy Wood Sr., and it’s no surprise the son’s humor intersects often with history, news, and civic engagement.

In 2021, Wood Jr. produced the Emmy-nominated documentary, The Neutral Ground. In 2023, he headlined the White House Correspondents Dinner. And just this fall, he has begun hosting a new show on CNN, “Have I Got News For You.”

Wood Jr. has also returned often for projects in his beloved Alabama, including: filming a TV project in Birmingham; narrating Alabama Public Television’s Alabama at 200 documentary; serving as an ambassador and correspondent for the MLB at Rickwood game in 2024, and hosting the “Road to Rickwood” podcast on the field’s baseball and civil rights history.

In an essay for AHA’s Mosaic magazine, the UA American Studies professor Jeffrey Melton, Ph.D., noted that Wood Jr.’s work covers a lot of the same terrain his father did, albeit with humor:

Wood Jr.’s method is clear: ‘If I can get you to laugh at it, then I can get you to listen.’

For more info: alabamahumanities.org/honors-bhm

For tickets: my.alysstephens.org/3382

This event is offered as part of AHA’s Alabama Colloquium series. Earlier this year, the Alabama Humanities Alliance honored musicians Brittany Howard and Jason Isbell in a similar event in Huntsville.

The Alabama Colloquium series is made possible due to the support of presenting sponsors Regions Bank, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, and Huntsville Utilities. All proceeds from the series support AHA programming that helps Alabamians connect with each other, our shared history, and the vibrant, complex communities we call home. 

About the Alabama Humanities Alliance
Founded 50 years ago, in 1974, the nonprofit and nonpartisan Alabama Humanities Alliance serves as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. AHA promotes impactful storytelling, lifelong learning and civic engagement. Through our programs and grantmaking, we provide Alabamians with opportunities to connect with each other, with our shared history, and with the vibrant and complex communities we call home. Learn more at alabamahumanities.org.

About the Alabama Colloquium
Each year, the Alabama Humanities Alliance presents the Alabama Colloquium to celebrate how the humanities lift up our state and bring Alabamians together. We also bestow the title of Alabama Humanities Fellow on individuals whose outstanding work in the humanities has positively impacted our state, nation, and world. Honorees include the likes of Harper Lee, Bryan Stevenson, E.O. Wilson, Odessa Woolfolk, W. Kamau Bell, Wayne Flynt, and more. alabamahumanities.org/honors