Newsroom Category: Alabama Humanities Honors

Celebrating AHA at 50

On December 2, the Alabama Humanities Alliance capped its 50th anniversary with a year-end celebration of the humanities. The Alabama Colloquium in Birmingham highlighted the power of sharing our stories with each other. To underscore the point, AHA bestowed its greatest honor upon two of Alabama finest storytellers, author Rick Bragg and humorist Roy Wood Jr.

The evening was a memorable one for many reasons. There was Bragg reciting the visceral and heartbreaking opening page of his memoir, All Over But the Shoutin’. Wood Jr. revealing his aim to film a one-man show in Birmingham and illustrate just how much his hometown means to him. A welcome from Mayor Randall Woodfin that highlighted Bragg’s ability to “open hearts and minds” and Wood’s to “use humor not only to entertain but to enlighten the world.”

There were surprise video messages from award-winning author Ron Rash and former Daily Show anchor Trevor Noah. Heartfelt tributes from author Cassandra King, to Bragg, and from educator and literacy advocate Devon Frazier, to Wood. There was even an errant fire alarm that briefly forced an evacuation of the Alys Stephens Center — sending attendees out into the cold and leading many to joke that Birmingham’s erstwhile prankster Roy Wood Jr. might be to blame.

But the highlight of the evening was the hilarious and heartfelt conversation between Bragg and Wood on stage, moderated by journalist Sid Evans. Evans’ first question asked each man what it meant to be honored as an Alabama Humanities Fellow. Tongue firmly in cheek, Bragg responded first: “With all due respect to Roy, I think they just kinda worked their way down to us.” Once the laughter had subsided, Bragg clarified: “You know when someone passes you the popcorn at the movie theatre and all that’s left is seeds and grease?”

Once the laughter died down again, Bragg copped to the truth: “No, you reach a point in your life when these things mean a whole lot more to you. Just think of what it took to put this thing on. Good people and a good organization. This means a lot to me. I’m honored to get to do it.”

Wood agreed: “It’s one thing to be honored. But to have people who know what your life was before this, to be able to come and celebrate you, it’s humbling. I’m trying not to cry. It means a lot.”

To see and hear more from the event:

To get a feel for our 50th anniversary, check out this Year in Review graphic.

Other highlights
Honorees Guin Robinson (left) and Julian Butler.

 

 

 

 

The Birmingham event was the final in a two-part Alabama Colloquium series for 2024. The first event, held in August in Huntsville, honored a pair of acclaimed songwriters and musicians from North Alabama: Brittany Howard and Jason Isbell. Howard and Isbell also joined in a conversation, followed by a pair of songs. Their conversation, and closing songs, are also available to view online.

The 2024 Alabama Colloquium series was made possible by the support of dozens of sponsors and partners, and by the 2,000-plus folks who attended. Presenting sponsors of the series included Regions Bank, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, Huntsville Utilities, and the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham.

 

A (50th) year to remember

Thanks to the support and involvement of Alabamians statewide, the Alabama Colloquium series was just one among many highlights from 2024.

Over the course of its 50th anniversary, the Alabama Humanities Alliance:

Awarded roughly $380,000 in grants to help dozens of nonprofits put on humanities-rich public programming statewide. (Applications now open for 2025 grants)

Turned our Healing History pilot into a long-term initiative to bridge divides and bring Alabamians together through conversation.

Brought a Smithsonian traveling exhibit, Crossroads, to five rural communities statewide, enabling nearly 5,000 Alabamians to share their small-town stories.

Grew AHA’s Alabama History Day program with our first official regional contest, in Mobile, and our first-ever AHD for incarcerated youth, at Mt. Meigs.

Reached nearly 2,500 Alabamians in 20-plus counties through our Road Scholars, who delivered 79 fascinating talks in community libraries, schools, historic sites, and more.

Considered our past, present, and future through a 50th anniversary issue of Mosaic magazine. (Sign up for Mosaic)

Explored the essence of Alabama through the lens of some of our state’s compelling writers, artists, and thinkers. Read our My Alabama Story series.

And there’s much more already scheduled for 2025: Expanded opportunities to engage with Healing History; our next Smithsonian traveling exhibit, Spark!; a new home for our Alabama History Day state contest at Troy University in Montgomery; a weeklong Stony the Road teacher institute exploring Alabama’s civil rights legacy; double the award funding for teachers named 2025 Riley Scholars, and a fall 2025 Alabama Colloquium in Mobile.

None of this is possible without the support of Alabamians across the state. Thank you for helping us share our collective stories. The stories of our hometowns, our neighbors, ourselves. The stories that help us understand where we come from and who we are. And bring us ever closer toward one another.

If you’d like to support AHA’s next 50 years, consider making a year-end gift. 

About the Alabama Humanities Alliance
Founded in 1974, the nonprofit Alabama Humanities Alliance serves as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Through our grantmaking and public programming, we connect Alabamians to impactful storytelling, lifelong learning, and civic engagement. We believe the humanities can bring our communities together and help us all see each other as fully human. Learn more at alabamahumanities.org.

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:

 

EVENT DETAILS:

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, Huntsville Utilities, and the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham. 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

‘That is the magic’

On August 26, a record-breaking Alabama Colloquium crowd of nearly 1,100 in Huntsville saw Brittany Howard and Jason Isbell honored as AHA’s newest Alabama Humanities Fellows. The pair joined in conversation to share about their Alabama roots, their musical journeys, and the power of storytelling in song.

It was a special occasion made even more so by the presence of much-beloved musician Patterson Hood, who introduced each honoree. And the night ended with a pair of songs played by our honorees — soul-deep performances that al.com’s Matt Wake noted “anyone with a heartbeat could feel. Wow. Just wow.”

Our thanks to presenting sponsors: Regions Bank, Huntsville Utilities, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama.

Photos from the event are available on AHA’s Facebook page.

Video of Howard and Isbell in conversation and song are on AHA’s YouTube channel.

Finally, below is an essay about the evening, written by the event’s moderator, Ann Powers, NPR Music’s critic and correspondent. Powers’ essay first appeared in the September 1 edition of the NPR Music newsletter. 

 

***

 

How Alabama shaped Jason Isbell and Brittany Howard

By Ann Powers (NPR Music)

 

Though I lived there for a shorter time than I did anywhere else, I still have some Alabama in my veins. Huntsville is where I headed Monday to meet up with two artists who, in recent years, have done a lot to deepen music lovers’ perceptions of that state. Jason Isbell was fresh from performing his song “Something More Than Free” at the Democratic National Convention; Brittany Howard would soon head into rehearsals for fall national tour. They’d carved out time that evening to be recognized as Alabama Humanities Fellows by the Alabama Humanities Alliance — an honor also granted to senators, [historians], educators, writers and artists. Along with another great songwriter (and my good friend), the Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood, I’d been tapped to help bestow the prize, sitting with Isbell and Howard for a warm conversation punctuated with much laughter and the occasional shout-out to family members in the audience (Howard’s dad and Isbell’s mom were both sitting up front.)

We could have talked about anything — politics, production techniques, the never-ending debate over what musical categories like “Americana” and “country” mean — but instead, Howard and Isbell ended up sharing stories of home.

“I can’t get Alabama out of me because I was made from this stuff,” Howard said. “I am red clay, you know what I’m saying? Like, I was playing in it. My mama told me not to eat the poke salad berries and I didn’t, you know? I was getting chased by water moccasins and that’s just in me. I remember waking up and my great aunt Brenda would be playing, like, ‘90s country music. I never could understand what they were talking about. It was a real small speaker, but I could kind of understand the vibe. And I’d just be like, yeah, it’s a beautiful country morning.”

Hood had introduced both Howard and Isbell that evening with his own anecdotes about meeting them as artistic embryos: Isbell first gained national fame as a teenage guitarist for the Truckers, while the band helped launch Howard’s former group, Alabama Shakes, toward stardom by taking them on tour early on. In a speech in which every joke landed like a kiss, Hood conjured the spirit of the strivers these two now-established talents once were.

Living in Tuscaloosa in the mid-2010’s, I saw one of those early Shakes shows at the beautiful BAMA Theater. After watching Howard captivate the audience and then sell every single piece of band merch she had from behind a card table in the lobby, I knew that she would become the festival-headlining, Grammy-winning generational voice she is now. Around that same time, Isbell, after an alcohol-related crash and burn that found him relocating to Nashville, where he got sober and serious at 33, released Southeastern, the album that established him as a songwriter on par with legends like John Prine and Lucinda Williams. Like me, Howard and Isbell found in Nashville a better footing for their growing careers.

But Alabama has always stayed with them. “This night is actually being sponsored by the Athens Appreciation Society!” Howard said, chuckling, after several rows of old friends caused a ruckus when she said the name of the small town where she grew up. As we talked, names of favorite clubs and hangouts filled the air. “I feel like I should talk about Athens, too,” Isbell quipped. (Born in Green Hill, he was raised in the more cosmopolitan, though still semi-rural, Muscle Shoals area, an hour away.) “That Subway there, right off the freeway, that’s where I used to meet up with the Truckers!”

Our talk unfolded in this way, punctuated by the names of fondly remembered clubs like the Nick in Birmingham and famed Tuscaloosa dive the Chukker, where generations of dirty rockers who never made it nationally burned out their amps amid the cigarette smoke. House parties came up, too, like the one in which Isbell, who knew Hood casually and had already impressed him, sat tensely on the stairs while the Truckers played and a SPIN reporter took notes. (That reporter, in fact, was my husband Eric Weisbard — we’d heard the Truckers at a tiny Pittsburgh festival the year before and were doing our best to convince our New York media friends of their greatness.) Missing a guitarist who’d gone AWOL, the Truckers were burning things down anyway — but Isbell thought they could use a hand.

“I just remember sitting there for the first third of the show and thinking, if they take a break, I’m just going to go tell them I can play the guitar parts on this,” he recalled. “Like it was just going through my head over and over and over and over… finally they took a break and I went up to Patterson and I was like, ‘You need somebody to play the third guitar on this, I can do that.’ And he was like, ‘Fine….’ And I was so excited. I was so excited. And then I was in the van the next day.”

That house party wasn’t exactly like the ones happening all across indie rock American at the turn of the 21st century, and that’s for Alabama reasons, too. The northern edge of the state, most music lovers know, is home to Fame and Muscle Shoals Studios, where many of the greatest albums of the classic rock and soul era were recorded with session men like Hood’s bassist dad, David, providing support. Even before he joined the Truckers, Isbell was learning about musical professionalism from Fame studios head Rick Hall, who put him on staff as a fledgling songwriter at 21. “I always had plenty of songs to turn in,” he recalled of the brief period when he was learning at the feet of Hall and local heroes like Spooner Oldham and Donnie Fritts. “I would come in and demo the songs and, you know, they loved them, but they were like, ‘I don’t think Tim McGraw is going to sing this.’” He wasn’t going to become a Music Row songwriter like his high school best friend and bandmate Chris Tompkins — who’d go on to pen Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats,” among many other hits — but Isbell learned a lot about hard work and songcraft in those days.

Ten years younger than Isbell, Howard found a different community in Athens the way indie kids have in countless small towns. Growing up on a small farm, she took solace in what records she could get her hands on. “I usually found music through friends,” she said. “CDs were 14 dollars apiece, you know, there’s no way that was happening.” She’d learned about prog rock and metal from a Pink Floyd-loving classmate at 14 and was avidly scouring the internet for similarly heavy music on her clunky desktop computer when she saw an older kid walking down the East Limestone High School hall wearing an At the Drive-In t-shirt. That was Zac Cockrell, who became the Alabama Shakes’ bassist and continues to collaborate with Howard on her solo work. Overcoming her shyness, she gave him a demo she’d made in her bedroom; soon they were jamming, adding members from other local bands and the nearby music store, Railroad Bazaar. “I knew about the Drive-By Truckers from North Alabama,” she said. “I saw them touring the world. And I remember saying, if they can do it, I can do it. Big inspiration. Woo!”

Listening to these stories, I recognized their universal qualities: young dreamers diving into new experiences and finding footing with assistance from mentors who recognize their spark; dirty little rooms vibrating with noise that points toward a future nobody beyond their walls knows is possible. Such miracles happen all the time in towns from Muscle Shoals to Tunis to Tokyo. But the particulars shaped Howard and Isbell. Alabama humidity, the long nights she’d spend fishing or chasing fireflies because it was too hot to sleep, helped form Howard’s sensibilities, and the “post-genre” eclecticism that makes albums like her latest, What Now, great stems from a community that’s more diverse than outsiders would expect. “There’s a lot of different kinds of folks there,” Howard said of Athens. “That’s something I couldn’t appreciate until I left home. People who have everything, people who have nothing. And I got to experience all kinds of people…. Especially when we’re young, we were all trying to figure out how to get out. We’re like, oh, it’s going to be so much better out there …. But as time goes on, I appreciate Athens so much.”

For Isbell, the Shoals area offered not just a chance to play music every day, but the conviviality of great players and songwriters who weren’t just faces on a poster he hung in his bedroom but friends who became like family. His distinctive blend of high craft and deep vulnerability is rooted in those teenage encounters with men and women who looked just like his own working-class folks, but who’d written and recorded some of the most beloved songs of all time.

“People like Spooner Oldham and Donnie Fritts and especially David Hood,” he said, “I was just shadowing those folks when I was growing up. Now I kind of cringe to think of some of the questions I asked them. They were patient. I remember asking David, ‘How do you do this? How do you get there, become a musician and that’s your only job?’ And he would say, ‘Show up on time, make sure all your gear works and be nice.’ I was like, ‘I want the magic, David!’ And he just said, ‘That is the magic.’” Small town magic. Home-grown magic. It’s different depending on where you call home — but the experience of carrying it with us connects us all.

 

Learn more about the Alabama Colloquium and AHA’s Alabama Humanities Fellows here: alabamahumanities.org/alabama-humanities-honors   

Brittany Howard, Jason Isbell: AL Humanities Fellows

Huntsville / April 18, 2024 — Grammy-winning musicians and north Alabama natives Brittany Howard and Jason Isbell will soon receive the highest humanities honor bestowed in their home state.

On August 26 in Huntsville, the Alabama Humanities Alliance (AHA) will recognize Howard and Isbell as Alabama Humanities Fellows. This ticketed event at the Von Braun Center will feature an in-depth conversation between the duo, and each honoree will perform a song for the occasion. Proceeds benefit AHA’s public humanities programming statewide.

Tickets are now on sale via the Von Braun Center (in person) and Ticketmaster (online). You can also learn more about the event at alabamahumanities.org/honors.

 

About the honorees

Howard and Isbell share deep roots in north Alabama — Howard in Athens, Isbell in Green Hill and Muscle Shoals. And the two are among the most acclaimed artists of their generation, with a combined 11 Grammy Awards between them.

They’ll be joining good company as Alabama Humanities Fellows. Past honorees include the likes of Imani Perry, Bryan Stevenson, Howell Raines, Fred Gray, E.O. Wilson, Harper Lee, Kathryn Tucker Windham, W. Kamau Bell, and Wayne Flynt.

While Howard and Isbell are, of course, impeccable musicians, it is their great talent as songwriters and storytellers that makes them Alabama Humanities Fellows. They adroitly weave key elements of the humanities — history, literature, and philosophy — into their songs.

“Brittany Howard and Jason Isbell use their lyrics and their lives to examine what it means to be human — and they challenge all of us to see the humanity in each other,” says Chuck Holmes, executive director of the Alabama Humanities Alliance, “Their lyrics require us to think, and to bring the same level of curiosity and empathy to our own lives.”

The August 26 event honoring Howard and Isbell is part of the Alabama Colloquium series and presented by the Alabama Humanities Alliance, which is celebrating 50 years of storytelling in 2024. All proceeds from the event support AHA programming that helps Alabamians connect with each other, our shared history, and the vibrant, complex communities we call home. 

 

Event details: 

The highlight of the event will feature an in-depth conversation between Howard and Isbell, moderated by NPR music critic Ann Powers. The honorees will receive their awards from another legendary north Alabama musician-songwriter, Muscle Shoals native Patterson Hood, co-founder of the Drive-By Truckers.

Hood has personal connections with each honoree. In the early 2000s, Isbell was a member of the Drive-By Truckers. In 2011, Hood heard Howard and her original band, the Alabama Shakes, play at a bar in Florence, Alabama; Hood invited them to open a series of shows for the Drive-By Truckers, helping to introduce Howard and the Alabama Shakes to a larger audience.

 

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. In 2024, AHA will present two Colloquium events. The first, in Huntsville on August 26, will honor Brittany Howard and Jason Isbell. The second, in Birmingham, will take place December 2 and honor author Rick Bragg and humorist Roy Wood Jr.

Perry, Mathews honored as Humanities Fellows

BIRMINGHAM / October 24, 2023 — Amidst an era of divisiveness and disinformation, the Alabama Humanities Alliance’s 2023 Alabama Colloquium shined a spotlight on how the humanities can build community and offer truth and healing through honest, shared explorations of the past. For proof of that, look no further than this year’s newly named Alabama Humanities Fellows, Imani Perry, Ph.D., and David Mathews, Ph.D.

Perry and Mathews were honored before a sold-out gathering at the Grand Bohemian Hotel, where the historian-author-scholar duo shared stories from their careers and the impact Alabama has had on their work.

Dr. Perry was introduced by Odessa Woolfolk, a 1997 Fellow and an icon in Birmingham for her role as an educator, activist, and as founding president of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and as co-founder of Leadership Alabama.

During her presentation, Woolfolk noted that, “Dr. Perry has said ‘writing can be a moral instrument if it asks us to do more than read.’ South to America should inspire its readers to do something for the betterment of America. Perhaps, in the words of the late Congressman John Lewis, there is a lot of good trouble, necessary trouble to be had right here in Birmingham and in our country. Just a thought.”

Dr. Mathews was introduced by Catherine Randall, Ph.D., co-founder and chair emerita of the David Mathews Center for Civic Life, as well as a five-time graduate of the University of Alabama.

“Today, David Mathews is receiving the highest humanities honor in the state because he sees diverse communities, rich cultures, and fellow neighbors more clearly and with more empathy,” Randall said. “He provides context that helps us better understand our past and our present…His scholarship and public service in pursuit of community-building and deliberative democracy represent the best of the humanities.”

 

Fellows in conversation

During their on-stage conversation, Mathews and Perry talked at great length about community and how the past informs our present.

“The word ‘community’ originally meant to share with or to care with,” Mathews noted. “Every word carries with it a history and that word’s history carries a recognition by our most ancient ancestors that to survive — just to stay alive — required different people to come together, beyond just family.”

“Part of the difficulty with listening is people are uncomfortable with being uncomfortable, which is actually a necessary part of being in respectful community,” Perry added. “At minimum, what’s required is for people to get comfortable with hearing things that might be unsettling and actually examine why it feels unsettling — to sit with the discomfort.”=

At the end of the event, each honoree was asked what it meant to return home to Alabama and receive this honor.

“It means the world to me,” Perry responded. “I have traveled far and been educated at lots of fancy places, but everything that I have carried with me that has enabled me to move with integrity and diligence and rigor and deep love of people — which is at the heart of the humanities — comes from this soil and my family. This means so much. There’s nothing in the world like being celebrated at home.”

Mathews ended his remarks with some levity, leaving the room in laughter. “A lot of people think I’m crazy,” he said with a smile. “But thanks to this award, they cannot prove it.”

The event was moderated by journalist Priska Neely, managing editor of the Gulf States Newsroom, an innovative collaboration among National Public Radio and member stations in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Neely filled in at the last second for planned moderator Kaitlan Collins, the CNN anchor and Alabama native who was sent on assignment to cover the ongoing war in the Middle East.

Collins sent a taped message to the Colloquium crowd that included her congratulations to Perry and Mathews: “You have both done such important work not only in exploring our past, but to also see how our past can be used to bring communities together and having those really important conversations that are so vital for our state.”

Other honorees recognized at the 2023 Alabama Colloquium included:

The Alabama Humanities Alliance also unveiled two new ways to engage with its work:

Healing History

Following the Colloquium, AHA offered a limited-capacity listening tour of Wallace House, run by our partners at the Wallace Center for Arts and Reconciliation. Built in 1841, in Harpersville, the Wallace House was once part of a 5,000-acre cotton plantation, which was worked by nearly 100 enslaved people.

Today, descendants of the home’s White landowners and enslaved Black population work together to examine their shared history and create a space for mutual understanding and reconciliation. Tour participants visited with those descendants as they shared their stories, and their hopes for the future. The tour also offered a chance to explore family exhibits and experience an open-air sculpture, Bearing Witness: Praise House, that evokes the spiritual practices of those once enslaved on the plantation.

Watch an AHA-funded video about the work underway at Wallace House.

AHA is focused on Healing History because its impact is needed urgently in our communities, and because it offers great hope for our future. As AHA’s Healing History coordinator Kathy Boswell shared:

“One of the best things about sharing history is being able to sit down and have those conversations through love, first of all. To speak from the heart and learn through the heart. To speak from curiosity and learn through curiosity, through humility. And, especially, to share and learn through willingness. Because what willingness means is, ‘I’ve left behind all the doubt, the fear, the shame, the concerns. And what I’m willing to do is, is to have the courage to raise my hand and say I’m in.’” 

 

About AHA’s 2023 Alabama Humanities Fellows

Imani Perry, a Birmingham native, is a scholar of law, literature, history, and cultural studies, as well as a creative nonfiction author. In 2022, she won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation. She was also recently received the MacArthur Fellow “genius grant.”

Perry has written five other books, including Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, which won the 2019 PEN Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography, and May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem, winner of the 2019 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Nonfiction.

Perry is a professor in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences and at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, one of the world’s leading centers for interdisciplinary exploration. She has bachelor’s degrees from Yale in American studies and literature, along with two terminal degrees from Harvard — a J.D. and a Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization. Outside of academia, Perry is a contributing writer for The Atlantic, where she pens a weekly newsletter that frequently reckons with the past, “Unsettled Territory.”

David Mathews, a Grove Hill native, has dedicated his life to building community and promoting democracy. Mathews earned an undergraduate degree in history from the University of Alabama and a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University. Returning to UA, Mathews both taught history and made it. He served as a history professor from 1965-1980, became the youngest president of a major university when he began his UA tenure at age 33, and presided over the integration of the Crimson Tide’s football program under Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant.

Mathews also served as U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in President Gerald Ford’s administration, where he worked on restoring public confidence in government. And he spent four decades as president and CEO of the Kettering Foundation, focusing the nonprofit’s work on engaging citizens in the democratic process.

Mathews’ legacy is evidenced in Alabama at the David Mathews Center for Civic Life, which seeks to strengthen civic engagement statewide. While president at UA, he also played a significant role — along with his counterpart at Auburn, Harry Philpott — in helping to found what is now the Alabama Humanities Alliance.

 

About the Alabama Humanities Alliance

Founded in 1974, the nonprofit Alabama Humanities Alliance serves as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Through our grantmaking and public programming, we connect Alabamians to impactful storytelling, lifelong learning, and civic engagement. We believe the humanities can bring our communities together and help us all see each other as fully human. Learn more at alabamahumanities.org.

 

2023 Alabama Humanities Fellows announced

BIRMINGHAM / August 16, 2023 — A pair of Alabama natives, widely acclaimed for their insights into American history and democracy, will return home this fall to be celebrated as 2023 Alabama Humanities Fellows.

On October 23, the Alabama Humanities Alliance (AHA) will honor Imani Perry, Ph.D., and David Mathews, Ph.D., at the Alabama Colloquium, presented by Regions. The highlight of the event will feature CNN anchor and Prattville native Kaitlan Collins in a wide-ranging conversation with the honorees. The conversation will explore how examining our past can offer healing and strength for Alabama’s communities today.

The Alabama Colloquium annually offers a chance to celebrate the humanities’ impact in Alabama, honor individuals who use the humanities to make our state and nation a better place to live, and raise funds to support AHA’s statewide programming.

Following the event, AHA will offer a limited-capacity listening tour of Wallace House, in Shelby County. Built in 1841, the Wallace House was once part of a 5,000-acre cotton plantation, which was worked by nearly 100 enslaved people. Today, descendants of the home’s White landowners and enslaved Black population work together to examine their shared history and create a space for mutual understanding and reconciliation.

 

EVENT DETAILS

 

ABOUT THE HONOREES
Imani Perry, a Birmingham native, is a scholar of law, literature, history, and cultural studies, as well as a creative nonfiction author. In 2022, she won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation.

Perry has written five other books, including Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, which won the 2019 PEN Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography, and May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem, winner of the 2019 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Nonfiction.

Perry is a professor in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences and at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, one of the world’s leading centers for interdisciplinary exploration. She has bachelor’s degrees from Yale in American studies and literature, along with two terminal degrees from Harvard — a J.D. and a Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization. Outside of academia, Perry is a contributing writer for The Atlantic, where she pens a weekly newsletter that frequently reckons with the past, “Unsettled Territory.”

David Mathews, a Grove Hill native, has dedicated his life to building community and promoting democracy. Mathews earned an undergraduate degree in history from the University of Alabama and a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University. Returning to UA, Mathews both taught history and made it. He served as a history professor from 1965-1980, became the youngest president of a major university when he began his UA tenure at age 33, and presided over the integration of the Crimson Tide’s football program under Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant.

Mathews also served as U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in President Gerald Ford’s administration, where he worked on restoring public confidence in government. And he spent four decades as president and CEO of the Kettering Foundation, focusing the nonprofit’s work on engaging citizens in the democratic process.

Mathews’ legacy is evidenced in Alabama at the David Mathews Center for Civic Life, which seeks to strengthen civic engagement statewide.

 

ABOUT THE MODERATOR
Kaitlan Collins, a Prattville native, is a journalist and anchor of CNN’s primetime show, “The Source with Kaitlan Collins.” Previously, Collins was co-anchor and chief correspondent of “CNN This Morning.” Prior to that, she served as CNN’s chief White House correspondent, based in Washington, D.C.

Collins earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and political science from the University of Alabama.

 

About the Alabama Humanities Alliance
Founded in 1974, the nonprofit Alabama Humanities Alliance serves as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. AHA promotes impactful storytelling, lifelong learning and civic engagement. We provide Alabamians with opportunities to connect with our shared cultures and to see each other as fully human. Through our grantmaking, we help scholars, communities and cultural nonprofits create humanities-rich projects that are accessible to all Alabamians — from literary festivals and documentary films to museum exhibitions and research collections. Learn more at alabamahumanities.org.

Bryan Stevenson, John Lewis named Alabama Humanities Fellows

March 7, 2022 — Last week, the Alabama Humanities Alliance honored two new Alabama Humanities Fellows: Bryan Stevenson (pictured, above left), founder of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), and John Lewis, the late civil rights leader and American statesman. The Alabama Colloquium — presented by Regions Bank and the Montgomery County Commission — featured a conversation between Stevenson and NPR’s Michel Martin (pictured, above right), plus a tribute to the life and legacy of Rep. Lewis. Alabama’s new poet laureate, Ashley M. Jones, shared an original poem written in honor of both new Fellows.

In her conversation with Stevenson, Martin asked if the Montgomery-based attorney saw any parallels between his work and the current war in Ukraine. Stevenson’s EJI focuses on human rights, particularly for incarcerated individuals, and the EJI’s recently opened Legacy Museum traces racial injustice in America from enslavement to mass incarceration. Stevenson said he sees a thru-line between how most state-backed violence and bigotry develop — from the American South’s Jim Crow laws to mass incarceration and to the impetus for invasions such as Russia’s into Ukraine.

“Much of my work is a response to what I call the politics of fear and anger,” Stevenson said. “I believe that when you allow yourself to be governed by fear and anger, you tolerate things you should never tolerate. You accept things you should never accept…The only way that bigotry, the only way that violence, the only way that discrimination prevails is when we feel too afraid or too angry to do the things we’re supposed to do…We will tolerate abuse of people if we allow fear to keep us silent, or if we allow anger about our own issues to keep us indifferent.”

Stevenson noted that the humanities — which include an appreciation of history, law, ethics, and civic engagement — can help people overcome fear and anger, as well as misinformation and manipulation. There are a lot of false narratives in our world today, Stevenson said, “that allow people to not confront difficult truths.”

“That’s why truth-telling is so important in how we learn about our past. If you don’t hear the truth, you become vulnerable to manipulations,” he added. “I’m not naïve enough to believe that every time we tell the truth beautiful things happen. But I am persuaded that when we don’t tell the truth we deny ourselves the beauty that is justice.”

The Hon. Myron H. Thompson, in his tribute to John Lewis, recalled how he watched Lewis embrace and forgive former Alabama Gov. John Patterson, the governor who defended segregation in Alabama and led law enforcement’s violent response to nonviolent marchers in the 1950s and 1960s — protestors including a young John Lewis.

“John Lewis’ capacity for forgiveness, for clemency — his ability to take his biggest enemy into his arms and say, ‘I forgive you’ — was beyond measure,” Judge Thompson said. “The only thing that was greater than his ability to forgive was his ability not to forget. The two go hand in hand. I think what he was saying is that hate saps us of our energy to move forward and do the right thing.”

Seven members of Lewis’ family attended the Alabama Colloquium and accepted Lewis’ Alabama Humanities Fellow honor on his behalf. Those family members included Rep. Lewis’ youngest brother, Henry. “They often called my brother — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. always did — the ‘boy from Troy,” Henry Lewis remembered. “I think my brother should have been called The Forgiver. Because he had this uncanny ability to forgive people for the most grievous things that they could do…and he did it because he believed hatred is too heavy a burden to bear.”

An emotional highlight of the Colloquium came when Ashley M. Jones, Alabama’s poet laureate, delivered “Freedom Sermon — Alabama USA,” an original poem in honor of Lewis and Stevenson.

“When we think about the story of this nation, we have to know that the movements that keep us moving toward liberation for all people often begin in the South — often, in Alabama,” Jones said. “This place is full of the spirit that moved in the late John Lewis. It moves now in Bryan Stevenson. And I hope that spirit continues to move as we enter new decades of struggle, of challenges here and abroad, and of what I hope is our shared desire to see this world truly become equitable.”

 

ADDITIONAL HONOREES

Greenhaw Service to the Humanities Awardee: Trey Granger
“We really are an Alliance now, an Alliance that acts as a prism for all the wonderful things that happen culturally across this great state…that prism, through this Alliance, really helps us understand who we are as Alabamians.”
—Trey Granger, deputy clerk of court, U.S. District Court
Immediate Past Chair, AHA Board of Directors

Greenhaw Service to the Humanities Awardee: Hon. Sally Greenhaw
“Just to be on the same program honoring John Lewis and Bryan Stevenson, that in itself is an honor. These two gentlemen embody not only the best of what the humanities are, but what the humanities can be.”
—Sally Greenhaw, Circuit Judge (retired), Montgomery County
Former AHA board member (2014-2021)

Charitable Organization in the Humanities Award: Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama
“The mission of our Caring Foundation is to give back to communities by supporting initiatives that support the health, wellness, and education of all Alabamians. We’re proud to support the Alabama Humanities Alliance and its efforts to provide Alabamians with opportunities for lifelong learning, appreciation for our diverse cultures, and connections with communities around our state.”
—Rebekah Elgin-Council, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama

 

About the Alabama Humanities Alliance
Founded in 1974, the Alabama Humanities Alliance is a nonprofit that serves as the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. AHA promotes impactful storytelling, lifelong learning and civic engagement. We provide Alabamians with opportunities to connect with our shared cultures and to see each other as fully human. Through our grantmaking, we help scholars, communities and cultural nonprofits create humanities-based projects that are accessible to all Alabamians — from literary festivals and documentary films to museum exhibitions and research collections. Learn more at alabamahumanities.org.

 

About Alabama Humanities Fellows
The Alabama Humanities Alliance bestows its highest honor to Alabamians who make the state a smarter, kinder, more vibrant place to live — all through the humanities. The recognition highlights those who explore what it means to be human, provide context for our past and our present, and help Alabamians see our fellow neighbors more clearly, and with more empathy. Since 1989, the Alabama Humanities Alliance has honored writers, scholars, community leaders, storytellers, and more. Some past recipients include W. Kamau Bell, Wayne Flynt, Fred Gray, Cynthia Tucker, Harper Lee, Howell Raines, Judge Myron Thompson, E.O. Wilson, Odessa Woolfolk, and Kathryn Tucker Windham. alabamahumanities.org/about/alabama-humanities-honors