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Mosaic magazine 2026

This September, new issues of Mosaic magazine are hitting the mailboxes, letter slots, and P.O. boxes of humanities lovers statewide.

To read the issue in full, visit alabamahumanities.org/mosaic-magazine/america-at-250.

Alabama Humanities’ 2026 issue of Mosaic is inspired by America’s semiquincentennial and brings our country’s founding history and principles to bear on the present. We are thrilled to feature authors who are experts in their field — historians, poets, musicians, educators, artists, archaeologists, legal scholars, veterans, and more.

AHA also highlights its own ‘America at 250’ grantmaking and programming from 2026 thus far — from a pair of Many Voices, One Nation exhibits in state to a 250 series at Alabama Constitution Hall Park, an Alabama History Day at American Village, and a ‘Threads of Memory’ yearlong project with the Montgomery County Historical Society. And so much more.

A sampling of stories in this issue: 

Two other essays stand out as bookends on a similar vein of thought: What can we glean from the Declaration of Independence as we consider its meaning for us all today?

In the first essay, UAB scholar Brian Steele explores the gulf “Between Promise and Fulfillment” (a phrase from Martin Luther King Jr.) that’s ever present between the words of America’s revolutionary founding document and the reality of our country’s history. In the essay, Steele writes:

“Augustine wrote in City of God that a people is constituted by ‘loved things held in common.’ In other words, if you want to understand a people, pay attention to what it loves. The Declaration assumes that there is such a thing as an American “we” and tells us a story about what that people loves and most deeply values.”

“…This is why the Declaration is rarely an occasion for uncritical celebration and self-congratulation; it has instead always been the standard that finds us wanting when our practices and institutions betray its claims about who we are and what we love.”

Later in the issue, Col. Alan Miller shares a closing essay that moves us forward, from examinations of the past to ask what we can consider for our shared future. In “Colors,” he writes about the the daily work of citizenship that extends far beyond this milestone year:

“Some look at our history and see hypocrisy more clearly than hope. A mature patriotism should not dismiss such disappointment. To love one’s country truthfully is not to pretend that it has always lived up to its ideals. But when America disappoints us, the answer is not to abandon the promise. The answer is to ask whether we are becoming the kind of people capable of fulfilling it. We must return more seriously to the work of citizenship.

“…Real patriotism is harder. It asks us to love the country truthfully: to see its wounds without despising it, its achievements without becoming blind to its failures, and our neighbors as citizens whose dignity and hopes are bound up with our own.”

 

Special insert, special tributes

The 2026 issue of Mosaic also includes a special insert that serves as an exhibit guide for Americans, a Smithsonian traveling exhibit that explores connections between U.S. and indigenous history. The exhibit will tour the state from September 2026 through June 2027, with stops in Atmore, Wetumpka, Florence, Scottsboro, and Foley.

And last but not least: This issue includes profiles on all of our 2025-2026 Alabama Humanities Fellows, who will be honored at a pair of events this October in Birmingham and Montevallo.

To say we are proud of the honorees’ profiles that appear in this issue would be a profound understatement. These essays are penned by an array of brilliant artists, historians, and scholars who know our 2026 Fellows well. Readers will hear from:

To learn more and read the issue in full, visit alabamahumanities.org/mosaic-magazine/america-at-250.

 

The land of ‘Alabama’ in 1776

The following is a companion piece to an essay published in AHA’s 2026 issue of Mosaic, “Revolutionary Travelers through Creek Country,” by Kathryn H. Braund, Ph.D. The insights below further illustrate the Native land of 1776 that would eventually become Alabama.

 

A wilderness wild once again

By Bill Finch

For a brief time in the eighteenth century, much of the land we know now as Alabama was a place of no nations. The nations that had shaped it for thousands of years — the Alabama and Koasati, the Choctaws and Chickasaws, the Naniabi and Yuchi, and many others — had been devastated by disease, enslavement, and wars. But the new nations  — the French, the Brits and Spaniards — still encroached timidly, clinging to the coast and major rivers.

The wilderness of Alabama, many believe, became wild again in ways that it had not been wild since humans built the first communities here, 15,000 years ago or so. The great pre-Columbian (pre-contact) Mississippian mound cities, densely populated and surrounded by what were essentially sprawling suburbs, were almost forgotten at the time of the nation’s founding. Aside from the small confederacy of Muscogee Creek communities that William Bartram encountered on his journeys from present-day Russell County down to Mobile, nature was filing in the gaps.

Canebrakes rapidly spread and reclaimed the river bottoms the First Nations had cleared for corn. Bison, by most accounts absent for many thousands of years, suddenly rebounded and flooded into the Black Belt prairies, the Huntsville basin grasslands, and some even into the pine savannas of South Alabama, free from the hunting pressure that had driven them west. Fires found their own way again through the landscape, no longer led by human burning practices, but following the lightning strikes that spread low flames from river to river, two or three times every decade in much of central and south Alabama, and almost as frequently in the north Alabama mountains and plateaus.

Bartram was perhaps the last explorer who could see the remnants of the old nations as the new nations were hot on his heels. He notes that bison,  common a few decades before, seemed to have largely disappeared as the new settlers moved in. He describes the overgrown remnants of the old Choctaw peach plantations and abandoned villages along the Alabama river bluffs, even as he served as a sort of real estate agent for the new world to come, declaring the wild bluffs at Wetumpka “one of the most eligible situations for a city in the world.”

To the poets who read Bartram, Alabama seemed like some kind of tropical paradise or nightmare. Bartram’s descriptions of Alabama in 1776 helped inspire Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s fevered vision of Kubla Khan, even as it sent savage chills down the spine of William Wordsworth. It would have been as strange to us. Magnolias indeed spread “high as a cloud” overhead, as Wordsworth paraphrased Bartram, but the poet was a careful student of Bartram and his trips through Alabama, and notes the other vista of 18th century Alabama, “flowers that with one scarlet gleam” covered hundreds of miles.

Splinter Hill Bog. By Beth Maynor Finch.

The interplay between grand forests, tall trees and extensive sunlit meadows and grasslands rich with flowers is almost impossible for the modern Alabamian to imagine. Most of Alabama’s forests weren’t really forests at all, but more like savannas, with widely spaced pines and grounds drenched in sunlight. Sunlit pitcher plant bogs and flowering flatwoods, a rainbow of flowers and carnivorous plants at all seasons, are now rare and precious. But in Bartram’s day they stretched nearly unbroken along the Gulf:  you could walk from the outskirts of New Orleans to Tallahassee, and rarely leave one, as Alabama biologist George Folkerts once noted.

What passes for a modern Alabama river is now dull, flat, damned to silence. But the original Alabama rivers roared. Some of the world’s most spectacular gorges, waterfalls, and cascades passed through the heart of Alabama. The First Nations found much of their livelihood in that roar, yanking migrating redhorse, Alabama-run striped bass and shad, eel, and even giant sturgeon from the shoals. In much of Alabama, the fish have been buried with the shoals, and some of the most important fish in Bartram’s day may never be seen again.

Bill Finch is a writer, naturalist, and founding director of Paint Rock Forest Research Center. You can read more of Finch on Alabama’s natural history in his 2023 essay for Mosaic magazine. 

 

A forgotten “Fourteenth Colony”

By Mike Bunn

It is easy to forget that there was an America beyond the Atlantic seaboard in 1776. There were more than thirteen British colonies in North America when the United States declared its independence, though, and what became Alabama was at the center of one of them.

The city of Mobile then stood as perhaps the largest community in the colony of West Florida, a province stretching along the Gulf Coast from the Mississippi to the Chattahoochee Rivers that’s known as Great Britain’s forgotten “Fourteenth Colony.” Although its population was small, Mobile ranked as an important center for trade, diplomacy, and defense of a region the British hoped to develop into a thriving part of their empire.

Bernardo de Gálvez depicted in “For Spain and for the King. By Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau.

For all those reasons it became a key target in a military campaign between Spain and Great Britain that opened a new front in the Revolutionary War. Bernardo de Gálvez, governor of the Spanish colony of Louisiana, attacked West Florida during the war, ultimately securing for Spain possession of the technically “loyal” colony and changing the map of the Gulf Coast in the process.

Mobile fell to the Spanish after a short siege in March of 1780. A second battle for control of the Mobile Bay region was fought on the Eastern Shore in January of 1781, again won by the Spanish. These contests assisted Spain in securing control of West Florida, but equally important for American troops fighting elsewhere, they tied up a portion of the precious manpower and resources of the thinly-stretched British government.

Mike Bunn is director of Historic Blakeley State Park in Spanish Fort. He is also an AHA Road Scholar who offers a talk on this forgotten history of the Gulf South during the Revolutionary Era. 

 

The song everyone knew

By Bobby Horton

We know that this land was filled with the songs and stomp-dance music of Muscogee Creeks and other nations. Surely, both English traditional tunes and Spanish folk songs were well known by those in the port city of Mobile.

For just about any settler of English descent, though, there’s one tune that just about everyone knew on the eve of the American Revolution.

“The Death of General Wolfe,” by Benjamin West (1770)

It’s a popular song from the French and Indian War called “Brave Wolfe,” about the British General James Wolfe, who was killed at the Battle of Quebec, a decisive British during the Seven Years’ War. He was a popular figure and the song went viral in the Colonies and surrounding territories.

Bobby Horton lives in Birmingham and is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, and music historian. He is also an Alabama Humanities Fellow. To read more from Horton on Alabama music history, read his 2024 essay, “Our Stories are in the Music.” 

New school year, new educational resources

As Alabama’s students and teachers return to school this month, they’ve got some dynamic new resources and funding available to them from the Alabama Humanities Alliance.

Among the highlights: A new year of Alabama History Day that all schools and districts can incorporate; $2,000 teacher scholarships to support history- and civics-focused professional development opportunties and classroom projects for K-8 educators; and, as ever, a robust Encyclopedia of Alabama offering rich resources for teacher and student research projects.

 

Alabama History Day 2027

AHA offers Alabama History Day each year as a dynamic project-based learning tool for the classroom and as a chance for students to compete in school, regional, and state contests. For the 2026-2027 school year, the competition’s theme is “Innovation in History: Impact, Influence, Change.”

Teachers statewide are encouraged to incororpate Alabama History Day into their classroom curricuum, and AHA regularly offers workshops to help educators do just that. The experience gives students the chance to become confident and curious learners, as they conduct primary research and engage with history in new and creative ways. Students pick their own topics within the year’s theme and get to present their research creatively as exhibits, documentaries, papers, websites, or dramatic performances.

Alabama History Day is open to all public, private, and home schools. Students compete in teams or individually, with two divisions available for middle schools and high schools. And all have the chance to advance to regional and state contests. After a thrilling “America at 250”-themed Alabama History Day hosted at American Village in 2026, we’re grateful that this year’s state contest will return to Troy University in Montgomery.

Alabama History Day is made possible thanks to generous funding from the state of Alabama, with additional support from local donors around the state and the partnership of National History Day.

 

Jenice Riley Memorial Scholarships

AHA also annually offers teacher scholarships that support K-8 Alabama educators who excel at helping students engage with history and civics. These competitive scholarships award $2,000, which can be used to fund creative classroom projects or support teachers’ professional development opportunities. The scholarship is open to all K-8 educators in public, private, or home schools.

The Riley Scholarships honor the late Jenice Riley, an extraordinary teacher who was the daughter of former Gov. Bob Riley and former First Lady Patsy Riley. Since 2003, these scholarships have awarded more than $114,000 in funding to 112 teachers statewide.

Riley Scholarship proposals should address how funds would be used to enhance teaching and learning about innovation. This year’s theme is inspired by the theme of AHA’s 2027 Alabama History Day competition, “Innovation in History: Influence, Impact, Change.” Not to be confused with invention, innovation is about new ways of seeing, imagining, improving, and organizing society and is key to our state’s (and nation’s) civic life and health.

Applications are now open for this year’s Riley Scholarships.

 

Encyclopedia of Alabama

The Encyclopedia of Alabama is a free, online resource that covers all things Alabama. Developed by Alabama Humanities and Auburn University — in partnership with many other insitutions and organizations across the state — the EOA enlists scholars to present trustworthy and authoritative information on Alabama’s history, people, culture, land, and more.

Students often use the EOA to help them choose their Alabama History Day projects and supplement their primary research. Teachers often use the EOA to support their classroom instruction and generate creative class projects.

The Encyclopedia of Alabama offers easy searching tools, including curated collections, topics by categories, and photo galleries. In 2026, the EOA also developed a special collection of resources related to “Alabama and America’s 250th Birthday.”

 

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. 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.

We are all Americans

On September 15, Americans officially opens its tour of Alabama, beginning in Atmore. The Alabama Humanities Alliance is bringing this Smithsonian traveling exhibit to the state as part of AHA’s America at 250 commemorations.

Developed by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, Americans is a fascinating and thought-provoking exploration of how deeply intertwined Native Americans are in the history, popular culture, and identity of the United States. The exhibit also challenges viewers to consider anew four of the best-known Native stories that intersect with U.S. history: Thanksgiving, Pocahontas, the Trail of Tears, and the Battle of Little Bighorn.

“The questions that Americans poses and the topics that it encourages us to discuss seem made for this period of reflection during the nation’s 250th anniversary,” says Laura Anderson, AHA’s director of partnerships and outcomes. “AHA encourages re-examination of stories and history, and Americans is designed to do just that. This exhibit helps visitors grapple with and find new ways of seeing American Indian history within the American story and contemporary Native communities here today.”

Through June of 2027, Americans will travel from Atmore to Wetumpka, Florence, Scottsboro, and Foley, all places rich in Native history, culture, and the contemporary presence of local tribes. Host partners in each community will complement the exhibit’s national perspective, with local talks, displays, artwork, and other programming that highlights the history and present-day impact of Alabama’s indigenous communities.

Sharon Fox is a genealogist and vice president of the Elmore County Historical Society. She is also the museum curator for the Elmore County Museum, which will host Americans during its stop in Wetumpka. Like her fellow hosts, Fox has been busy lining up locally focused programming to pair with the exhibit — local history displays at the Wetumka Public Library, Alabama Frontier Days at Fort Toulouse-Fort Jackson, and presentations by authors, historians, and tribal members.

“As a small museum, we spend a lot of time sharing local history,” Fox says. “It’s exciting that this exhibit connects our local stories to America’s story as a whole. I hope visitors will leave thinking about how the people and places right here in Elmore County fit into our nation’s story. I hope they leave seeing Elmore County with fresh eyes and go home to research more about what they’ve learned.”

 

Local programming

Among the many programs of note already scheduled during the Americans tour:

 

Americans’ tour of Alabama is made possible through a longtime partnership between AHA and the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street, and thanks to the presenting sponsorship of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.

Americans marks the 13th national exhibit AHA has brought to Alabama over the past 30 years, through a partnership with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service’s Museum on Main Street. These exhibits have invited Alabamians to share their stories about how our own communities have been shaped by food, sports, water, innovation, music, migration, and more.

For further info on Americans, check out the following resources:

  

Americans tour dates:

 

Atmore | Encore at the Strand
September 16 – November 4, 2026

Wetumpka | Elmore County Museum
November 16 – December 18, 2026

Florence | Florence-Lauderdale Public Library
January 11 – February 22, 2027

Scottsboro | Scottsboro-Jackson Heritage Center
March 4 – April 22, 2027

Foley | OWA Parks & Resort
April 30 – June 25, 2027

 

About AHA and the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street
The Alabama Humanities Alliance brings Smithsonian traveling exhibits to the state thanks to a partnership with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service’s Museum on Main Street. The program provides access to the Smithsonian for small-town America through traveling museum exhibitions, research, educational resources, and public programming. Since 1997, the Alabama Humanities Alliance has partnered with the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street to bring 13 national exhibits to Alabama — and to 75 communities across the state.

Meet AHA’s 2026 honorees

August 5, 2026 — The Alabama Humanities Alliance announced today its 2026 Alabama Colloquium series, which will recognize Alabamians who have made their mark in music, literature, history, and democracy. Honorees will be recognized at a pair of events this fall, to be held in Montevallo, on October 12, and Birmingham, on October 19.

Among this year’s awardees are seven new Alabama Humanities Fellows; the title represents the highest humanities honor bestowed in the state of Alabama.

 

This year’s Alabama Humanities Fellows are:

 

Other honorees

This year’s AHA Champion of the Humanities Award recipient is the Alabama USA Semiquincentennial Commission. This honor recognizes individuals or organizations for their charitable contributions or public policy support to advance the humanities across Alabama. In 2026, the Commission led Alabama’s statewide celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, aiming to educate, engage, and unite Alabamians around our nation’s founding principles and the pursuit of a more perfect union. Crucially, the Commission also provided $675,000 in grants to hundreds of municipalities, county commissions, and nonprofit organizations — making 250 celebrations possible across all 67 counties.

The 2026 Wayne and Sally Greenhaw Service to the Humanities Award recipient is Joyce Cauthen. This honor recognizes individuals who have made substantive contributions to the work of the Alabama Humanities Alliance specifically and to the public humanities generally in Alabama. Cauthen served as founding director of the Alabama Folklife Association and is a renowned expert on folk music traditions in Alabama. She is a founding member of AHA’s Road Scholars Speakers Bureau, presenting talks in communities across the state for nearly four decades. Cauthen has authored multiple books, including, most recently, The Ballad of Fiddling Tom Freeman: Music, Moonshine, and Murder in Bug Tussle, Alabama.

 

Alabama Colloquium event details

Alabama Colloquium I: “Considering America at 250”
October 12, 2026 | 11:30am
American Village | Montevallo
Note: This is an invitation-only event.

American Village’s campus will serve as the backdrop for a conversation considering America at 250, highlighting our Fellows’ efforts to document, examine, and help to make real the promise embedded in America’s Declaration of Independence.

Program highlights:

Note that attendance for this event is by invitation; a recording will be made available for online viewing.

 

Alabama Colloquium II: “Celebrating the Music of America, Made in Alabama”
October 19, 2026 | 6:30pm
Lyric Theatre | Birmingham
Note: Venue info and ticket sales via the Lyric Theatre and Ticketmaster. 

On the stage of Birmingham’s historic Lyric Theatre, we’ll gather to celebrate the contributions of four iconic Alabama musicians to American storytelling and culture. Each honoree will share stories, and a selection of songs, from their careers.

Program highlights:

Venue details and tickets for this public event are now on sale via the Lyric Theatre and Ticketmaster.

The Alabama Colloquium series is made possible thanks to the support of many, including our 2026 presenting sponsor, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama.

 

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. Past honorees include a diverse range of honorees, including the likes of Harper Lee, Bryan Stevenson, E.O. Wilson, Jason Isbell, Fred Gray, Rick Bragg, and Wayne Flynt.

The Alabama Colloquium is typically a one-time event each year. In 2026, AHA presents a two-part series, in part to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary. This year’s more robust slate of awards also includes honorees that AHA intended to recognize last year. AHA had to cancel its 2025 Alabama Colloquium due to a DOGE-initiated revoking of federal funding for Alabama Humanities, and all other state humanities councils across the nation.

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. 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.

Major Grants return

(Above: Sacred Harp singing featured in an AHA-funded episode of the Alabama Folklife Association’s podcast series, Alabama Folk.)

 

The Alabama Humanities Alliance is once again set to offer Major Grants in support of humanities-rich public programming statewide. These grants offer up to $15,000 for eligible projects that bring Alabamians together to explore what makes us human — our shared history, literature, languages, art, archaeology, religion, philosophy, and more.

The timing of these Major Grants is intended to aid Alabama nonprofits, institutions of higher education, and governmental agencies in planning their public programming for 2027. AHA’s next two rounds of Major Grant deadlines are October 1, 2026, and February 1, 2027.

AHA’s updated grant guidelines are available now; AHA’s grant portal for Major Grant applications will open August 10. For full info on AHA grantmaking, visit alabamahumanities.org/grants.

“We are delighted to offer these Major Grants once again to support the many cultural and educational groups that rely on this funding,” says Chuck Holmes, AHA’s executive director. “AHA’s grantmaking is core to who we are and why we exist. This is how we help local communities learn more about the wider world around us, as well as the people, places, and stories that make Alabama home.”

 

About AHA’s Major Grants

AHA’s Major Grants often fund projects such as traveling exhibitions, oral history projects, lectures and conferences, cultural and literary festivals, teacher workshops, documentary films, and more. Competitive applications all share three essential elements: public participation, strong humanities content, and the direct involvement of humanities scholars.

These grants also often help connect the humanities to the arts, sciences, and beyond. In recent rounds of grantmaking, for instance, AHA has supported:

“We’re thankful for the Alabama Humanities grant that allowed us to bring national humanities speakers to our AI Symposium, exposing our community to a broad spectrum of ideas and establishing the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, and Alabama, as a leader in the AI discussion.”  -Nancy Noever, U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Huntsville

 

New guidelines for 2026

Interested applicants are strongly encouraged to read AHA’s updated guidelines in full. Key updates to this year’s guidelines for both Major and Mini Grants include:

The grant guidelines also feature three new resources for applicants:

In addition to the revised grant guidelines, applicants also have the opportunity to submit draft applications prior to each grant deadline – for feedback they can apply to their final application. Applicants can also set up a call to talk through eligibility and application questions with AHA’s grants director, Graydon Rust.

 

Funding history

This marks the first time in nearly a year and a half that AHA has been able to offer Major Grant funding for Alabama’s communities. In the spring of 2025, AHA experienced a disruption of its federal funding due to cuts directed by the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency — revoking funding that Congress had already appropriated for AHA and all other state humanities councils across the nation.

For more than 50 years, AHA has used federal funding to support its grantmaking. The arrangement is part of a longstanding federal-state partnership — created and annually renewed by Congress — that directs funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to nonprofit and nonpartisan state humanities councils, like AHA. The goal is to empower grantmaking decisions at the state level, closest to the public programming being created by, and for, local communities.

“While our federal funding has yet to be restored to Congressionally directed levels, we are grateful that enough funds have started flowing so that we can again offer these vital grants,” says Holmes. “We know know how much Alabama’s communities rely on us. In a survey of our most recent Major Grant recipients, 90% noted that their work would not be possible without AHA’s support.”

The loss of federal funding also came at a critical time, given 2026 marked America’s 250th anniversary. Individual and institutional donors helped AHA sustain its monthly Mini Grants program (up to $2,500). Throughout 2026, AHA has prioritized funding projects that explore America’s founding history and principles and sparked community conversations on our shared past and future.

Still, the impact on Alabama’s communities is evident in AHA’s year-end 2024 and 2025 grantmaking numbers:

Grants awarded statewide:

Community events and public programs funded:

As another AHA grant recipient put it before last year’s pause in Major Grants:

“AHA support is the difference between many good and worthwhile programs happening or not happening in our state.”  -Mike Bunn, Historic Blakeley State Park, Spanish Fort

 

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.

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.