Newsroom Category: History

Many Voices, One Nation

One week ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary, the Alabama Humanities Alliance celebrated the openings of a pair of in-state exhibits for Many Voices, One Nation. The openings took place in the communities of Ozark and St. Stephens, and a photo album is available on AHA’s Facebook page.

Many Voices, One Nation began as a permanent exhibit on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. For America’s 250th, AHA helped secure “starter kits” to create local versions of the exhibit. Now open, these exhibits highlight the people, places, stories, and events that have shaped our own Alabama communities from past to present.

“We are so grateful for our longtime partnership with the Smithsonian Institution and for the invaluable resources and experiences this partnership generates for the people of Alabama,” says Chuck Holmes, AHA executive director. “Especially right now, as we celebrate America’s semiquincentennial, this is a special opportunity see how the stories of Alabama tie into the larger narrative of American history.”

Washington County

On June 26, the Washington County Museum and the St. Stephens Historical Commission partnered to debut Many Voices, One Nation: Alabama’s First County as its locally customized exhibit, at the Old Washington County Courthouse in St. Stephens Historical Park. The exhibit is open daily through July 5, from 2-6pm, before moving to a different schedule hrough 2027.

Washington County’s exhibit and accompanying programming address local and national themes of expansion, freedom, inclusion, equality, migration, negotiation, and transformation. It explores the history of the U.S. and Washington County through the lens of our people — those who were here, those who came by force, and those who came seeking new beginnings.
Dale County

 

Over in Ozark, the Dale County Council of Arts & Humanities worked with community members and Smithsonian staff to curate its local exhibit, Many Voices, One Nation: Voices of Dale County in the Wiregrass. The exhibit opened on June 28 and will remain on display through August 8 at the Dowling Museum | Ann Rudd Art Center. The exhibit will then travel to venues across the Wiregrass through 2027.

At the exhibit’s opening, the community also celebrated an exhibition of artwork that’s featured in the new book, Spirit of Dale County: Celebrating Two Hundred Years, by Helen Taylor Andrews and Carol Luckfield. The project was spearheaded by Diane Clouse, a retired educator and performing arts professional who is also a member of AHA’s board of directors.
Many Voices exhibit info

St. Stephens:
Old Washington County Courthouse
Tuesdays and Thursdays
10am-2pm
Through 2027
washcoalhistory.com

Ozark:
Dowling Museum | Ann Rudd Art Center
Wednesday-Saturday
11am-3pm (5pm on Thursdays)
Through August 8, 2026
ruddartcenter.org

 

Support for this exhibit

For three decades, the Alabama Humanities Alliance has partnered with the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street to bring more than a dozen national exhibits to the state, touring 67 towns – and counting. The Many Voices, One Nation starter kit is an America at 250 project, made possible thanks to our local host partners and many individual and institutional donors, including the Alabama USA Semiquincentennial Commission, Ford Foundation, Wiregrass Foundation, ALA-TOM RC&D Council, and Wiregrass RC&D Council.

For more on Many Voices, visit alabamahumanities.org/many-voices-one-nation.

 

AHA and America at 250

Many Voices, One Nation is just one of many ways that the Alabama Humanities Alliance is helping Alabamians commemorate this milestone year. Among AHA’s 250 highlights this year:

–Grant offerings, available statewide, to help Alabamians reflect on America’s founding and spark community conversations

–250 Road Scholars presentations for communities across the state, highlighting America’s founding era

-Americans, a Smithsonian traveling exhibit opening in the fall that will visit Atmore, Wetumpka, Florence, Scottsboro, and Foley

-Alabama Colloquium series this fall, celebrating the diverse music of Alabama and honoring scholars who elevate our nation’s history and ideals

-250-themed issue of Mosaic magazine, exploring our past for the sake of our future

–Healing History convening this fall that aims to bring Alabamians together to learn from our past

-Specially themed Alabama History Day 2026 state contest hosted at American Village

For more on all things 250, check out AHA’s America at 250 flyer.

Alabama at National History Day

This week, AHA’s 2026 Alabama History Day winners traveled to Maryland and Washington, D.C., to participate in National History Day, June 14-18, 2026. Students competed with their middle school and high school counterparts from around the country, and represented our state poise, passion, and creativity.

“National History Day is always such a rewarding payoff for the students who place at our statewide contest,” says Idrissa N. Snider, Ph.D., AHA’s Alabama History Day coordinator. “This was a sharp, and kind, group of students and they represented our state with pride. We are so grateful to the parents who supported them, and to the brilliant teachers who work with these students on their projects and help prepare them for these competitions.”

In addition to the competition itself at the University of Maryland, the week also gave participants the chance to tour Washington, D.C. Alabama’s students visited Smithsonian museums, watched the U.S. Senate in session, and met with Senator Katie Britt, whose staff once again arranged a fascinating tour of the U.S. Capitol building for Alabama’s young historians. Some students and teachers also met with their own members of Congress to share how much History Day means to them, including with Rep. Robert Aderholt and Rep. Shomari Figures.

See an Alabama History Day 2026 photo album!

 

National recognition

Several Alabama students shined on the national stage:

Isaac Livingston, Westminster Christian Academy, Huntsville

Outstanding Affiliate Winner, Senior Division

“Yellowstone: A Wilderness Revolution” (Website)

Landon Nguyen, Clark-Shaw Magnet School of Math, Science, and Technology, Mobile

Outstanding Affiliate Winner, Junior Division

“Threads Bounding the World: How the Silk Road Revolutionized Global Trade” (Exhibit)

Yeonwoo Seok, Auburn High School

Smithsonian Showcase Selection, National Museum of American History

“The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: Revolution, Reaction, and Reform in Medical Research Ethics” (Exhibit)

Cassie Williams, Denton Magnet School of Technology, Mobile

Smithsonian Showcase Selection, Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture

“The Voyage of the Clotilda: Ocean of Tears” (Documentary)

 

Looking ahead

National History Day closes out the 2025-2026 History Day season, which was themed around “Revolution, Reaction, Reform in History,” an apt selection given America’s 250th anniversary this year. AHA’s state contest took place at American Village in April.

Our thanks to AHA’s sponsors, partners, and schools statewide who make Alabama History Day possible, including the State of Alabama and Alabama Commission on Higher Education for their financial support.

The theme, contest dates, and details for Alabama History Day 2027 will be revealed later this summer. To learn more about Alabama History Day, visit alabamahumanities.org/alabama-history-day.

About the Alabama Humanities Alliance
Founded in 1974, the nonprofit and nonpartisan Alabama Humanities Alliance has served as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Through AHA’s grantmaking and public programming, we promote lifelong learning, impactful storytelling, and civic engagement. We believe the humanities can bring Alabamians together and help us better understand the communities we call home.

Students become the teachers at Alabama History Day

April 13, 2026 — History is always present at Montevallo’s American Village, where Alabamians learn about America’s founding history and the responsibilities of citizenship. On April 9, a different kind of history was made here — by students who came from across the state to present their own historical research, at AHA’s Alabama History Day 2026.

These middle school and high school students came from Magnolia Springs and Mount Vernon, Athens and Madison, and from Auburn, Tuscaloosa, and many points in between. And they came prepared.

Throughout the 2025-2026 school year, History Day participants chose their own topics and conducted primary research to shape new historical arguments. These students then transformed from historians into artists, filmmakers, actors, writers, and web designers, as they dreamed up creative ways to share their research.

“That’s such a great part of this process,” says Ginger Golson, a history teacher at Fairhope High School. “Students like to be able to choose the things that they want to do and the way that they want to do it. And when they’re interested in what they’re studying, they’re more engaged and they produce better work. It gets them engaged in learning on their terms.”

On April 9, competitors presented exhibits, documentaries, websites, papers, and dramatic performances to judges inside replicas of some of America’s most historic, Colonial-era buildings — such as Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, and Williamsburg’s Bruton Parish Church. Once finished, students had the chance to experience all American Village offers — from historical storytelling by Colonial actors to a replica Oval Office, exhibits at the National Veterans Shrine, and much more.

Alabama History Day winners were announced at an exuberant awards ceremony at day’s end. First- and second-place finishers are now eligible to advance to National History Day this summer in Maryland and Washington, D.C.

Walter D. Ward, Ph.D., is a professor and chair of History at UAB. At Alabama History Day, he served as both a judge and as a sponsor presenting UAB’s Civil Rights History Award.

“Alabama History Day is such a positive experience for students,” Dr. Ward says. “Students don’t get many opportunities to be experts, but on Alabama History Day, they were the experts, and I was the student. Experiences like these give students confidence that they can do research and communicate what they learned. These are exactly the kinds of skills that will benefit them no matter what career they eventually seek.”

 

More on Alabama History Day 2026

 

Topics run the gamut of history

Of the 120-some projects that made it to the state contest, topics ran the gamut from local to state, national, and international topics of history. All connected to this year’s theme, inspired by the 250th anniversary of America’s Declaration of Independence, “Revolution, Reaction, Reform in History.”

Some projects hit America’s founding history head on, including “Alexander Hamilton: Architect of America”; “Survival and Sovereignty: Alabama Native Americans through Revolution, Reaction, and Reform”; “The American Revolution and the Boston Tea Party.”

Other projects focused on Alabama history right in students’ own backyards, such as “Mosquitoes, Medicine, and the Man from Mobile: Dr. William Gorgas and the Fight for Global Health”; “The Space Race in the Rocket City’s Engineering Revolution”; “The Republic of West Florida: A Hidden Chapter in American History.”

And some projects explored either American history or global stories from the past. For example: “The Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1975”; “The Day the People Took the Bastille”; “The Ghost Girls: How Radium Changed American Businesses Forever.”

No matter the subject, all students had to identify primary sources and then interpret their findings for volunteer judges who work as historians, educators, lawyers, and authors.

“The most important lesson we’re trying to teach is how you go about doing research with integrity,” says Chuck Holmes, executive director of the Alabama Humanities Alliance. “They have to find sources, build a bibliography, and learn how to tell a story — whether that’s through writing, film, performance, or whatever interests them.”

 

Recognizing student and teacher excellence

At Alabama History Day’s awards ceremony, student winners were recognized in a variety of project categories, and some students received special awards given out by historical and educational groups. These special award sponsors include the Interstate Character Council of Alabama, Alabama Public Television, and National Maritime Historical Society, among others.

A pair of educators were also recognized for their work throughout the 2025-2026 Alabama History Day journey. Laura Carter, a social studies teacher at New Century Technology High School in Huntsville, was named Outstanding AHD Teacher of the Year. Matthew Spivey, academic supervisor for social studies at Mobile County Public Schools, was honored as Outstanding AHD Supporter of the Year.

Students and teachers alike are already looking forward to Alabama History Day 2027, which comes with a theme of “Innovation in History: Impact, Influence, Change.”

And everyone left American Village last week with an inspiring charge, given to them by Col. Alan Miller, the CEO of American Village and a Board member with Alabama Humanities. Miller shared that what students accomplished through Alabama History Day is a beginning, not an end. And they have history itself to inspire them to even greater goals in the future.

“If you look, you will find the figures in history who speak to you, those who struggled and failed and got back up,” Miller shared. “Draw strength from them and let them remind you that greatness is not reserved for those who are perfectly prepared. It is earned by those willing to grow.

“Failure is the only thing that comes easily. Everything else, everything worthwhile, requires effort, discipline, and persistence. You have demonstrated that — not just today but in all the work and effort you put into your projects leading up to today.

“Thank you for the work you’ve done to truly engage with history. Because you didn’t just study it. You studied it to understand it. I hope you were able to see yourself in it. And hopefully you recognized that your own moment, ready or not, will come. And when it does, I hope you’ll be willing to do what Washington did, what Lincoln did, what Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks did. I hope you will recognize your moment and step forward into it.”

 

About Alabama History Day
Alabama History Day is a year-long program and the Alabama Humanities Alliance presents it as a state affiliate of National History Day. The program helps students become passionate about the past and become confident, curious learners for the future. History Day also provides teachers with a dynamic project-learning tool for the classroom. The competition is open to all public, private, and homeschool students in grades 6-12. Learn more at alabamahumanities.org/alabama-history-day.

Funding for Alabama History Day comes from the State of Alabama through the Alabama Commission on Higher Education. Alabama History Day 2026 was presented in partnership with the American Village Citizenship Trust and the Alabama USA Semiquincentennial Commission.

Additional research partners and award sponsors include the Alabama Department of Archives & History, Alabama Historical Association, Alabama Public Television, Auburn University at Montgomery, David Mathews Center for Civic Life, Interstate Character Council of Alabama, National Maritime Historical Society, Sons of the American Revolution’s Alabama Society, Troy University, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Alabama in Huntsville, University of Montevallo, and William Wayne Smith Foundation.

About the Alabama Humanities Alliance
Founded in 1974, the nonprofit and nonpartisan Alabama Humanities Alliance has served as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Through AHA’s grantmaking and public programming, we promote lifelong learning, impactful storytelling, and civic engagement. We believe the humanities can bring Alabamians together and help us better understand the communities we call home.

Remembering Jo Ann Bland and Bernard LaFayette

Over the past few weeks, Alabama has lost a pair of civil rights icons in Jo Ann Bland and Bernard LaFayette Jr. This loss hits especially hard in Selma, where each left a profound legacy.

Alabama Humanities mourns their passing, too, as both Bland and LaFayette often served as AHA project scholars. Most prominently, they each served as speakers and mentors for educators from across Alabama, and nationwide, who participated in AHA’s summer residency, Stony the Road We Trod: Exploring Alabama’s Civil Rights Legacy.

Jo Ann Bland, giving a tour of Selma civil rights history.

Jo Ann Bland, from Selma, joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) at just eight years old. By the time she was 11, she’d already been arrested at least 13 times for nonviolent demonstrations challenging Jim Crow laws and racial segregation. In 1965, she participated in Bloody Sunday, a march that helped lead to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Bland would become the co-founder of the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute. She passed away in her beloved Selma, on February 19.

For Bernard LaFafayette Jr., Ed.D., his ties to Alabama began in the early 1960s, too. Back then, he and John Lewis, of Troy, were roommates at American Baptist Theological Seminary, in Nashville. Through their leadership roles in SNCC, LaFayette and Lewis would help lead the Freedom Rides of 1961. LaFayette’s leadership was critical as director of SNCC’s Alabama voter registration project in Selma. He would continue to work closely with Martin Luther King Jr., including as national coordinator of the Poor People’s Campaign at the time of King’s assassination. LaFayette passed away on March 5, in Tuskegee.

Below, AHA friends Martha Bouyer, D.Min., Mark Wilson, Ph.D.; and Dorothy Walker share memories of these two titans of Alabama’s civil rights history.

 

Martha Bouyer on Jo Ann Bland

Dr. Bouyer is an educator, civil rights scholar, and an AHA Alabama Humanities Fellow. She has led various versions of ‘Stony’ for AHA through the years, drawing on her experience as executive director of the Historic Bethel Baptist Church Community Restoration Fund.

“What a fellowship, what a joy divine!”

Jo Ann Bland, speaking to teachers in AHA’s Stony the Road institute.

When I think of Jo Ann Bland, words from this song come to mind. Jo Ann and I first met at a meeting with Priscilla Hancock-Cooper at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. At the time, she was working with Rose Sanders at the National Voting Rights Museum. At first, I thought she was so quiet and reserved. Was I ever wrong about her!

Jo Ann, master teacher, storyteller, historian, and friend. I remember when she met with over 20 teachers through the “Stony” teacher project I developed with AHA. Jo Ann and I worked with teachers from across the nation and around the world to help them understand the complexities of living life in a Jim Crow society.

She challenged all of us to take this story of ordinary people standing up in the face of certain danger for the right to vote. Jo Ann emphasized the importance of saying “I have a Dream.” Even if the dreamer had been murdered, the dream was still alive. Words mattered and she wanted the children who lived in George Washington Carver Homes, as well as the thousands of people who came to literally sit at her feet, to learn the history and get it right.

I am so glad that I got to work with this amazing woman on the National Park Service documentary Never Lose Sight of Freedom. Through the magic of technology, her voice will continue to ring out and bring hope to the hopeless. Countless students will understand what it means to take a stand for the right and to do something to correct a wrong.

I was so sad to hear of Jo Ann’s death, but I thank God that she lived. During our Stony institute, as we stood with her on the steps of Brown Chapel or scurried around to find a rock in the playground, she commanded our attention and encouraged us to teach the history of Selma. To stand for right, freedom, justice, and equality. I thank God that I got to call her my friend.

 

Mark Wilson on Bernard Lafayette

Dr. Wilson is an author, historian, and director of the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities at Auburn University. A frequent AHA project scholar, he also serves as secretary of the Alabama Historical Association.

Bernard LaFafayette, meeting with Auburn University students. Mark Wilson is at center.

For several years starting in 2017, Dr. LaFayette worked with the Draughon Center as a Breeden Eminent Visiting Scholar, and he co-taught courses on leadership and civic engagement. He also made countless class visits to share his unique life experiences related to the civil rights movement, teaching nonviolence around the world, and adventures galore.

Bernard modeled reflection on the human experience better than anyone else, and his commitment to nonviolence and Martin Luther King’s final words to him (“…to institutionalize and internationalize nonviolence”) resonate as much today as they did in 1968.

As we mourn his passing, I hope people who haven’t heard his stories will find them online, considering what the power of nonviolence might mean in our lives and nation today. (You can also read Dr. LaFayette’s story directly in his own words, through his book, In Peace and Freedom: My Journey in Selma.)

 

Dorothy Walker on Bernard Lafayette

Walker retired from the Alabama Historical Commission in 2024 as site director for Montgomery’s Freedom Rides Museum. She now is a program officer the U.S. Department of the Interior and is on the board of the David Mathews Center for Civic Engagement. This memory comes from her story in AHA’s Mosaic magazine in 2021, on the Freedom Rides of 1961: “The power of place, memory, song.”

My favorite thing to do is to humanize the Freedom Riders. If people know the story at all, they usually come with this visual in their head of this large group of people. Freedom Riders who are mostly nameless and faceless. So, I tell visitors the names and their stories. I show them faces. I remind them that a lot of the Freedom Riders were 18-, 19-, 20-year-old kids…

Bernard LaFayette’s mug shot following an arrest during a 1961 Freedom Ride.

I tell them about Dr. Bernard Lafayette, a Freedom Rider who also organized sit-ins during the Nashville Student Movement. He tells a story of a sit-in at a lunch counter where this guy holds up a lighter to the hair of a female student. Dr. Lafayette could smell it smoldering. He doesn’t get violent, but he puts his hand over her head and tries to put it out.

Dr. Lafayette recalls the student turning to him, giving him this very serious look, and saying: “Please do not interfere with my suffering. My suffering is what people have to see for change to happen.”

…The few times that Freedom Riders were asked if they wanted to press charges against their assailants, they said: “No, that’s my brother, that’s my sister.”

 

For more on this era of Alabama history, listen to AHA’s 2021 podcast series, Black Alabamians and the Vote.

History, for the present

October 28, 2025 — On a chilly, rainy, winter-like day in October, The Rotunda at American Village was filled with folks who had traveled to Montevallo from across the state. Among the gathered were historians and educators, church and community leaders, archaeologists and authors, economic development gurus and nonprofit directors. Citizens and Alabamians, all, coming together to discuss how examining our shared past just might offer a blueprint for building stronger, more connected communities, here, and now.

Healing History: An Alabama Convening was born out of the Alabama Humanities Alliance’s Healing History initiative. The event was the first of many that AHA has planned to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary in 2026 and to consider America’s founding principles in modern context.

Participants came from major cities and university towns, as well as communities like Eutaw and Faunsdale, Eufaula and Warrior Stand, Gadsden, Harpersville, Spanish Fort, and more. They represented groups engaged in oral history projects; genealogy efforts among Black and White descendants of former plantations; philanthropic community programs; explorations of indigenous, rural, holocaust, and Confederate histories; and much more.

“Our goal was to bring folks together who are doing similar history-based work, but who might not be aware of others’ efforts in different parts of the state,” says Laura Anderson, AHA’s director of partnerships and outcomes.

“This gathering was a chance for people to ask questions, share information, and imagine the ways we can use our shared history to build deeper relationships with each other in the present.”

 

Highlights from the day

The convening’s agenda included a panel conversation, a film screening, and a talk by Edwin C. Bridges, Ph.D., director emeritus of the Alabama Department of Archives & History. But perhaps the most valuable part of the day was the chance for attendees to simply share with each other their inspired ideas, common challenges, and new connections.

Julia Walker, from Newbern, attended with a small group of women who are writing a collection of essays titled The Dissident Daughters of the Confederacy. The project was born out of the women’s efforts to reexamine the myths and misinformation they grew up with connected to the South’s “Lost Cause.”

“We were just so thankful for how much information we received, how much fun we had, and how encouraged we all felt by learning of so many pockets of good work being done throughout the state,” Walker said. 

Kathy Boswell, AHA’s Healing History coordinator, gave an overview of the initiative’s goals — and how AHA could help support similar, locally led efforts through grants, trainings, and more. Boswell also led participants through exercises on how to talk with, and listen to, each other.

“This is hard work that you’re all doing because it’s heart work,” Boswell said. “That’s why we’re here to encourage, to connect, and to remind you that what you’re doing is important. It’s what will bring people together.”

Allison Upshaw, Ph.D., an AHA Road Scholar and associate professor at Stillman College, moderated a panel conversation about the documentary, Echoes of the Forks of Cypress. The film, created by Frederick Murphy and funded in part by AHA, follows Black and White descendants of an iconic North Alabama plantation — including Murphy — as they reckon with their shared past, aiming for healing and community in the present.

The panel considered what it means to uncover stories that have been intentionally lost or hidden, and they also underscored how local, shared stories can best bring neighbors and communities together in unexpected ways.

“If you want to retain people’s interest, it’s better if you can focus on things that are relatable and that people can directly connect with,” Murphy said. “Maybe it’s a shared surname, a landmark in your local community, a family shop that’s been in town forever…that’s the kind of history that people can explore together.”

Dr. Bridges’ talk was titled “Alabamians: People Divided by a Shared History.” In it, he traced the interwoven threads of Alabama’s history since statehood — its rich cultural fabric, yes, but also its self-inflicted wounds and the roots of the artificial dividing lines still visible among us today.

“No one alive today is responsible for all these challenges we face from our history,” Bridges said, in his closing.

“But we are all responsible for what we can do today to make Alabama a better place. And a key part of that is understanding each other and being open — as today’s program is all about — being willing to talk with each other, learn from each other, and work together to overcome these barriers from the past that have pitted us against each other.”

 

Past Forward

One of the gateways to AHA’s Healing History initiative comes through an experience called Past Forward. The experience offers a chance to explore, and reflect upon, an aspect of our shared history — and consider how decisions made in the past still affect our lives, livelihoods, relationships, and communities today.

AHA’s final Past Forward of 2025 will take place on November 20, in Bessemer:

AHA thanks the American Village Citizenship Trust and the David Mathews Center for Civic Life for their partnership and hospitality in hosting Healing History: An Alabama Convening. AHA’s Healing History initiative would not be possible without the support of many individual and institutional donors, especially the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham, the Mellon Foundation, Regions Bank, and the Argosy Foundation.

 

About the Alabama Humanities Alliance
Founded in 1974, the nonprofit and nonpartisan Alabama Humanities Alliance has served as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Through our grantmaking and public programming, we promote lifelong learning, impactful storytelling, and civic engagement. We believe the humanities can bring Alabamians together and help us better understand the communities we call home.

Supporting history and civics in the classroom

October 1, 2025 — A children’s literature project for students with learning disabilities. A living history wax museum and City Hall field trip. A storytelling series. And a class-created book of civic rights and responsibilities.

These are the winning project ideas submitted by Alabama educators chosen as AHA’s 2025 Riley Scholars. This year’s winners are Abby Crews (Geneva), Jordan Franck (Florence), Amanda Ridge (Russellville), and Ashlie-Nicole Wehner (Huntsville).

The competitive Jenice Riley Memorial Scholarship is awarded annually to K-8 educators who excel at helping students engage with history and civics. Riley Scholars receive $2,000 in support of history- and civics-related classroom projects or for professional development opportunities.

Funded through the W. Edgar Welden Fund for Education, this scholarship is a tribute to the late Jenice Riley — a passionate educator and daughter of former Alabama governor and first lady Bob and Patsy Riley. Edgar Welden is a former AHA board member and a steadfast supporter of educational initiatives in Alabama. Since 2003, the Alabama Humanities Alliance has named 110 Riley Scholars and funded more than $114,000 in teacher scholarships.

If you’d like to help AHA continue supporting Alabama’s teachers and students, consider making a gift to support the Alabama Humanities Alliance.

 

Applications open for 2026!

Applications are now being accepted for AHA’s 2026 Jenice Riley Memorial Scholarships. Alabama educators are encouraged to apply by April 30, 2026.

The 2026 proposal theme is “Revolution, Reaction, Reform in History.” All Riley Scholarship proposals should address how funds would be used to enhance teaching and learning about historical events and movements connected to different revolutions, reactions, and reforms in our history.

This year’s theme is inspired by (but not limited to) the 250th anniversary of America’s Declaration of Independence in 2026. This is also the theme of AHA’s 2026 Alabama History Day competition.

 

Meet our 2025 Riley Scholars

Abby Crews, Mulkey Elementary (Geneva County)
Geneva City Schools | Fifth Grade

PROJECT: City Hall Field Trip and Living History Wax Museum
This multi-pronged project will take students on a field trip to Geneva’s new City Hall, which will include a city council simulation. Back at school, Crews will help students create a voting booth for school elections. Finally, students will participate in a Living History Wax Museum that gives them a chance to study history while enhancing their writing, reading, public speaking, and critical thinking skills.

 

Jordan Franck, Forest Hills Elementary (Lauderdale County)
Florence City Schools | Fifth Grade

PROJECT: Rights and Responsibilities Storytelling Series
One of the most common ways that students learn about the history of our country is through the art of storytelling. The goal of Franck’s project is to help students learn about history and civics through a new and robust library of history books. Novel studies will also be incorporated into the reading curriculum to help students personally connect with history and civics, to inspire them as future leaders.

 

Amanda Ridge, Russellville Middle (Franklin County)
Russellville City Schools | Sixth Grade

PROJECT: How Can I be a Golden Patriot?
Around 60 percent of students in Ridge’s classroom come from families that immigrated to the United States. This has inspired a hands-on idea for learning about U.S. history and civics. Students will begin by studying the book, For Which We Stand, a book that explains the origins of U.S. government, how it works, and how to engage with it. Students will then create their own book of civic rights and responsibilities, making copies to keep and copies to donate to local libraries.

 

Ashlie-Nichole Wehner, Jones Valley Elementary (Madison County)
Huntsville City Schools | Special Education, Grades 4-6

PROJECT: Three Bears Den
Can children’s literature help foster an understanding of rights and responsibilities among students with special needs? Wehner will lead a civics classroom project centered around Goldilocks and the Three Bears, leading discussions on the “Goldilocks Theory” of what is “just right” – our daily decisions to make the right choices and be responsible for our own actions. Scholarship support will enable Wehner to create a “Three Bears Den,” with resources and equipment to make learning more accessible for her students with a variety of learning disabilities.

 

About the Alabama Humanities Alliance
Founded in 1974, the nonprofit and nonpartisan Alabama Humanities Alliance has served as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Through our grantmaking and public programming, we promote lifelong learning, impactful storytelling, and civic engagement. We believe the humanities can bring Alabamians together and help us better understand the communities we call home.

An Alabama Convening

Two years ago, the Alabama Humanities Alliance began an experiment. We came to call it our Healing History initiative.

A collaborative effort, Healing History brings Alabamians together to investigate our shared past — as a way to better understand our present and each other. The goal is to strengthen our communities, our workforces, and our relationships.

Learning from history isn’t a new idea, of course; we are far from the only people in the state doing this kind of work. And that’s why we want to hear from — and learn from — others who are engaged in “Healing History” work in their own communities across Alabama.

***

Are you engaged in historical work that aims to bring Alabamians together today? Join AHA in Montevallo on October 27, 2025, for Healing History: An Alabama Convening.

This will be a gathering focused on inspiration and imagination, of considering different ways we can mine the past to strengthen our present. Plenary sessions, talks, and film screenings will highlight creative, history-based model projects. There will also be ample time to sit, share, and connect.

Bring your own ideas and examples, your openness and curiosity. Partners Hall will be open throughout the day, showcasing collaborators from around the state. Registration is free but required in advance. Lunch will be provided.

 

Healing History: An Alabama Convening
October 27, 2025  |  10am-4pm
The Rotunda at American Village
3727 Highway 19  |  Montevallo, AL 35115
Register for free: surveymonkey.com/r/FZYR8GH

Why Montevallo? We’re meeting in the middle of the state for two reasons. One, because we have some great friends at the David Mathews Center for Civic Life and the American Village Citizenship Trust who graciously agreed to host us. And, two, we wanted to meet in the middle of the state to allow for as many people, from all corners of Alabama, to join us.

 

Who should attend? 

 

Learn more: 

 

Supporting organizations
AHA’s Healing History initiative would not have gotten off the ground two years ago without seed funding from the State of Alabama, and it would not have grown without the generous, ongoing support of the Community Foundation for Greater Birmingham. Additional thanks to our founding partners at Bread for the World and Regions Bank, and to model partners such as History Before Us and The Wallace Center for Arts and Reconciliation.

What we have in common

On August 25, at Birmingham’s Red Mountain Theatre, author and social psychologist Kurt Gray offered a new take on this current American era of outrage and polarization. At the heart of his message: We’re motivated far more by what we have in common than we might think.

“Most of our differences come from the same place,” Gray shared, “about protecting ourselves or others from harm. The disagreements come over our different perceptions of what might be harmful and of who’s being harmed.”

That finding from Gray’s research won’t magically heal our nation’s self-inflicted wounds, but it might help folks better understand each other and open up opportunities for productive conversations. Indeed, that hope inspired the entire evening.

 

Sharing our stories

Gray’s talk was offered as part of an ongoing Woven Together series, co-presented by the Alabama Humanities Alliance, Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham, and Leadership Birmingham, and sponsored by Alabama Power.

Chuck Holmes, AHA executive director

As AHA’s executive director Chuck Holmes shared at the start of the evening: “We’re going to learn more about Kurt tonight, but more importantly, we’re going to learn more about ourselves, and how we cope and how we process things in our lives and in the life of our nation.”

One of the most important takeaways came when Gray described how to try entering into conversation with someone who might have fundamentally different opinions than yours.

“Facts matter, but they’re not the best way to start a conversation,” Gray said. “You’re not starting an argument to win. You’re starting a conversation to understand someone. And when you approach it that way, storytelling — not facts — is a much more powerful way of bridging divides. Start with your personal experiences.”

So, how do we start difficult conversations, especially ones that might involve thorny topics?

Author Kurt Gray

“Talk with someone like they’re a full person,” Gray emphasized. “Nobody is just one thing. We all contain multitudes. So, start with something real that doesn’t have anything to do with politics. None of us like being talked at. People like being asked real questions.”

After Gray’s talk, he signed copies of his book, Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics – and How to Find Common Ground. The book-signing was courtesy of Thank You Books, and signed copies of the book are now available at the Birmingham bookseller.

 

Healing History

For those interested in other opportunities for coming together in conversation and exploration, check out AHA’s Healing History initiative. This collaborative effort helps Alabamians examine our shared histories in order to better know, and understand, one another.

On August 25, nearly 60 people arrived early to Red Mountain Theatre, to participate in Past Forward, a participatory introduction to AHA’s Healing History initiative. This experience offers a chance to explore, and reflect upon, our shared history — and consider how decisions made in the past affect our lives, livelihoods, relationships, and communities today.

Register for upcoming Healing History opportunities below, and learn more at alabamahumanities.org/healing-history.

 

About the Alabama Humanities Alliance
Founded in 1974, the nonprofit and nonpartisan Alabama Humanities Alliance has served as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Through our grantmaking and public programming, we promote lifelong learning, impactful storytelling, and civic engagement. We believe the humanities can bring Alabamians together and help us better understand the communities we call home.

 

Lead image, at top, by Bob Farley. 

Echoes of the Forks of Cypress

“This is where your people were held, by mine.”
-Curtis Flowers, great-great-great-grandaughter of Sarah and James Jackson, owners of the Forks of Cypress plantation, speaking with Black descendants of those enslaved at the site

So begins one of the opening lines of Echoes of the Forks of Cypress, a powerful documentary that follows the journey of Black and White descendants of the iconic North Alabama plantation, as they reckon with their shared past to bring about healing and community in the present.

The film, which was funded in part by the Alabama Humanities Alliance’s Healing History initiative, had its Alabama premiere on August 12, 2025, at the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library. Around 125 people attended the debut, far exceeding the library’s viewing area for the screening. Chairs were hauled from all corners of the library, and some people sat with obstructed views, or no views at all — demonstrating the local appetite for history, genealogy, and community-building.

As noted by Laura Anderson, AHA’s director of partnerships and outcomes, the project embodies the ideals of AHA’s Healing History initiative: “When we started this effort two years ago, we didn’t really want to define all that is “Healing History” because we wanted people around Alabama to come together and define that for themselves and their communities, and then come to us for support.”

And that’s exactly how AHA’s funding for Echoes of the Forks of Cypress came about.

Filmmaker Frederick Murphy, founder, History Before Us

Brian Murphy, director of Florence Arts & Museums — a frequent AHA partner and grant recipient — told Anderson about a Southern filmmaker who had recently discovered that some of his ancestors were once enslaved at the Forks of Cypress. The filmmaker was working with one of the White descendants of the Jackson plantation at the Forks to research his line there, as much as possible. He also had an idea to bring White and Black descendants together with a goal: To reimagine the plantation and its cemetery as spaces for remembrance and reflection — to have challenging conversations and acknowledge the site’s painful legacy, but also to cultivate new paths forward for healing and understanding with one another.

That filmmaker was Frederick Murphy, founder of History Before Us, a production company focused on capturing, preserving, and advocating for influential history. AHA supported Murphy’s vision with a Healing History grant, making the production of Echoes possible.

One of Muprhy’s primary objectives for the project was to help other Black descendants trace their own family lines that ran through the Forks of Cypress.

“Genealogy for people of African descent can be challenging due to gaps and erasures in historical records,” Murphy says. “Collaboration between descendant communities on all sides, paired with shared knowledge and persistence, helps restore lost connections and reclaim ancestral legacies.”

Over the past year and a half, Murphy’s work has brought together folks from across Florence and the Shoals — and far beyond — connecting descendants.

Descendants of the Forks of Cypress pose for a photo together

The work also pulled in many other Shoals residents interested in learning more about the iconic site’s full history and how learning about that past can strengthen the region’s present. Allies joined in: The Alabama Historical Commission, Florence Arts and Museums, Florence-Lauderdale Public Library, and community historians, archivists, and genealogists from local churches, historical societies, and more.

“This project,” Murphy says, “was about showing that people can work together and do something that is emotionally charged — that can make us angry but can also bring us joy and happiness — and, more importantly, it hones in on what I center my life around, and that is our shared humanity.”

 

Going beyond the film

Following the film’s screening, Murphy and Anderson led a wide-ranging community conversation in the Florence library. Descendants answered questions from the audience, and from each other. And audience members shared ideas that the film had inspired in them, including ways to connect the Forks work with other citizen-led, community projects: genealogy workshops, cemetery preservation, oral history projects, books, new mapping efforts, and more.

Community members also shared their personal responses to the film.

One woman, Andrea Blackstone, had come all the way from Virginia after learning she had enslaved ancestors at the Forks. She told Murphy that he “did something for me, with this film, that I’ve waited for most of my life.” She was there with her son, who was celebrating his 12th birthday, documenting the evening with photos aplenty on his new camera. “You have also reinforced that we need to keep doing this work because we all need to know where we come from. This is the day that I get to say I understand me a little better.”

Another woman, a lifelong resident of the Shoals, shared how the film and conversation made her aware of this local history for the first time in her life: “I’ve lived around the Forks of Cypress forever and I didn’t know all this. To see your faces, to hear your stories, to meet you — it’s so powerful. It’s moving and at the same time, I wish I had known this so much sooner. Thank you. That’s what I want to say. Thank you. This has changed me.”

Murphy is planning more screenings of Echoes in Alabama and across the South, before the film heads to a streaming platform for wider release. You can watch a trailer of the film here. 

You can also read a deeper dive about Echoes of the Forks of Cypress in AHA’s 2024 issue of Mosaic magazine.

 

About AHA’s Healing History initiative

This collaborative 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 aim is to build trust, foster empathy, and grow community through mutually respectful discussions about our shared past, present, and future. AHA is grateful to the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham for its significant support for this initiative.

See below for more on ways to engage with Healing History. You can also learn more at alabamahumanities.org/healing-history. 

Past Forward: AHA offers Past Forward as a participatory introduction to Healing History. This experience offers a chance to explore, and reflect upon, our shared history — and consider how decisions made in the past affect our lives, livelihoods, relationships, and communities today.

Upcoming Past Forward opportunities:

Woven Together: Woven Together is a series presented by the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham, Leadership Birmingham, and the Alabama Humanities Alliance. Our next event will take place on August 25, at Birmingham’s Red Mountain Theatre: Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics — and How to Find Common Ground. 

The event features author and social psychologist Kurt Gray, who will unpack the science behind our outrage and reveal how empathy, not division, can drive real dialogue. You’ll discover why we’re more alike than we think, and how understanding our emotions can bridge even the deepest divides — no matter where we reside on the political, religious, or geographical spectrums.

Tickets are $10 and you can purchase them here. 

 

About the Alabama Humanities Alliance
Founded in 1974, the nonprofit and nonpartisan Alabama Humanities Alliance has served as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Through our grantmaking and public programming, we promote lifelong learning, impactful storytelling, and civic engagement. We believe the humanities can bring Alabamians together and help us better understand the communities we call home.

 

*Our thanks to the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library for the photos used in this story. 

Stony the Road We Trod

Last Wednesday, educator Cynthia Jackson sat in a pew at Birmingham’s historic Bethel Baptist Church, speaking quietly with Rev. Carolyn McKinstry, D.Div., a beloved author and minister who, as a teenager, had survived the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

McKinstry had just spoken before a group of Alabama teachers, sharing about her childhood in Birmingham during the civil rights movement. Now, Jackson was talking directly with this inspiring foot soldier, a conversation swirling around Alabama’s past, present, and future.

“When my kids, my students, get to asking questions, how wonderful will it be when I can tell them, ‘well, I actually got to talk with Dr. Carolyn McKinstry, who survived the 16th Street Church bombing, and here’s what she told me,’” says Jackson, who teaches at W.F. Burns Middle School in Chambers County. “This is a living experience that I’ll be able to draw on when I’m back in the classroom. This is incredible.”

Stony the Road

Jackson was one of the educators participating in the Alabama Humanities Alliance’s summer field study, Stony the Road We Trod: Exploring Alabama’s Civil Rights Legacy. The immersive, residential experience enables Alabama K-12 teachers to visit sites of conscience, meet foot soldiers of the movement, and discover new resources and ideas for the classroom. Teachers selected for the workshop came from cities big and small — from Huntsville to Northport, Parrish to Opelika, and points in between.

View a photo album from Stony 2025.

 

Highlights of Stony 2025 included visits to:

 

Along the way, teachers visited archives to identify primary resources they could use in the classroom. On the final day of the residency, teachers even crafted potential new lesson plans and then presented them to each other for peer feedback.

“Stony the Road is a professional learning treasure for our state educators,” says W. Blake Busbin, Ph.D., Course of Study Administrator and Social Studies Education Specialist for the Alabama State Department of Education.

“The life-changing experiences it offers to its participants reveal the stories of people, places, and events that not only shaped local communities and Alabama but furthered America’s commitment to its 1776 promises contained in the Declaration of Independence,” Busbin notes. “The combination of content knowledge and pedagogy provided in the learning experience equips Alabama teachers to be leaders in teaching this integral history.”

Stony’s project director is Martha Bouyer, D.Min., an educator and civil rights scholar who was named an AHA Alabama Humanities Fellow in 2018. Dr. Bouyer has led various versions of Stony for AHA through the years, drawing on her experience as executive director of the Historic Bethel Baptist Church Community Restoration Fund.

“This kind of story-sharing is sort of the art of showing people why they should care about a thing,” Bouyer says. “That is where the humanities live, helping us to be in touch with the things that impact our lives.”

 

Bringing Stony back to the classroom

Teachers selected to participate in Stony received a stipend, professional development credits, and new resources for the classroom — including a half-dozen new books.

Participant Cynthia Jackson noted that each teacher received those books far in advance of the workshop, preparing her for what she’d see up close during Stony — and providing a rare chance to then speak with a few of those authors in person during the week.

Jackson even made a personal connection with scholar Hasan Kwame Jeffries, Ph.D., a history professor and author who gave a presentation on expanding the stories of the civil rights movement. Dr. Jeffries wrote Bloody Lowndes, about the 1960s freedom movement in Alabama’s Black Belt.

“When I was reading his book, one of the names I saw jumped off the page,” Jackson says. “Dr. Jeffries had actually interviewed one of my relatives, who lives in Lowndes County. So, I had the chance to talk with Dr. Jeffries about that and to share stories with each other about our Lowndes County connections. Getting to interact with authors like that is wild. It’s such an invaluable part of this experience.”

Stony indeed dives deeply into Alabama’s civil rights legacy. The residency isn’t just a primer for newer teachers of this history. It’s also a boost for the most experienced of educators.

Kristina Godsey, of Parrish, Alabama, teaches at Fairfield High Preparatory School. She’s taught for 20 years and serves as her school’s social studies chair.

“I signed up for this because there’s always something new you can learn,” she says. “The more I immerse myself in something, the more I’m going to understand it. What we’re doing here makes civil rights history personal, human. And when you look at it that way, and can teach it that way, it really resonates.”

 

Making Stony 2025 possible

The Alabama Humanities Alliance has now presented Stony at least a half-dozen times. This year, the nonprofit and nonpartisan organization is more appreciative than ever for all who made the experience possible.

Back in April, the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency terminated AHA’s 50-year partnership with the National Endowment for the Humanities — and, with it, two-thirds of our annual budget. For more than half a century, AHA had used federal dollars appropriated by a bipartisan Congress to support statewide grantmaking and programming such as Stony and AHA’s beloved Road Scholars Speakers Bureau.

“This spring, we feared we would have to cancel this unique opportunity for Alabama’s teachers,” says Chuck Holmes, AHA’s executive director. “Thankfully, we didn’t have to do that because of generous contributions from individuals and institutional donors statewide, who value Alabama’s history and Alabama’s educators. We are so grateful to them all for ensuring Stony could proceed.”

The Alabama Humanities Alliance still has a long way to go to find sustainable funding that will ensure its grantmaking and public programming continue beyond 2025. To support the future of Alabama Humanities, donate at alabamahumanities.org/support.

 

About the Alabama Humanities Alliance
Founded in 1974, the nonprofit and nonpartisan Alabama Humanities Alliance has served as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Through our grantmaking and public programming, we promote lifelong learning, impactful storytelling, and civic engagement. We believe the humanities can bring Alabamians together and help us better understand the communities we call home. Learn more at alabamahumanities.org.