SUMMER 2021 New Name. Same Mission. A Better Alabama. MOSAIC: The Magazine of the Alabama Humanities Alliance | SUMMER 2021 1 MOSAIC MAGAZINE | SUMMER 2021 Page 22 Page 25 Inside this issue 05 From the director 18 Beyond the vote 06 New leadership 20 New ways to heal 08 Grantees in the news 22 Sister acts 10 Cultural currents 26 Grants roundup 13 Freedom Rides 30 Donor honor roll About the cover The Alabama Humanities Foundation is now the Alabama Humanities Alliance. Our name may be new, but our mission remains the same: To foster greater learning, understanding, and appreciation of our people, communities, and cultures. Cover design: Telegraph Creative MOSAIC: The Magazine of the Alabama Humanities Alliance | SUMMER 2021 3 Alabama Humanities Alliance Board of Directors Chair: Dr. Joseph Aistrup (Auburn) Vice Chair: Darren L. Hicks (Birmingham) Treasurer: Dr. John F. Kvach (Brownsboro) Secretary: Judge Sally Greenhaw (Birmingham) Executive Committee At-Large: Julian D. Butler (Huntsville) Executive Committee At-Large: Dr. Kern M. Jackson (Mobile) Immediate Past Chair: Trey Granger (Pike Road) Bob Barnett (Pell City) Dr. Michael Burger (Montgomery) Janice Hawkins (Troy) Dr. Dorothy W. Huston (Huntsville) Dr. Elliot A. Knight (Montgomery) Sheryl Threadgill-Matthews (Camden) Robert McGhee (Atmore) Ed Mizzell (Birmingham) Judge Tammy Montgomery (Livingston) Dr. Mark D. Nelson (Tuscaloosa) Dr. Ansley L. Quiros (Florence) Judge David A. Rains (Fort Payne) The Alabama Humanities Alliance, founded in 1974, Brett Shaffer (Birmingham) is a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Chandra Brown Stewart (Mobile) Humanities. AHA aims to enrich the lives of Alabamians R.B. Walker (Birmingham) through engagement in the humanities, tailoring our Andy Weil (Montgomery) programs and funding to address the specific needs of communities across the state. Alabama Humanities Alliance Staff alabamahumanities.org [email protected] Executive Director: Charles W. (Chuck) Holmes 205.558.3980 Special Projects Coordinator : Laura C. Anderson Operations Manager: Alma Anthony Alabama Humanities Alliance 1100 Ireland Way, Suite 202 Program Coordinator: Rachel M. Hartsell Birmingham, AL 35205 Communications Director: Phillip Jordan Grants Director: Graydon Rust Grow the Alliance. Share the Humanities. @alabamahumanities Mosaic Masthead @alabamahumanities @ALhumanities Editors: Phillip Jordan and Carol Pappas Alabama Humanities Alliance Design: Telegraph Creative #ALhumanities Printing: Russell Printing (Alexander City) 4 MOSAIC: The Magazine of the Alabama Humanities Alliance | SUMMER 2021 From the director Charles W. (Chuck) Holmes Executive Director Be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds. As I write these words, we’re gearing up to distribute another $800,000 in Alabama Humanities Recovery In ancient Greece, young Achilles is taught those two vital Grants. These NEH funds, provided via the American things, as told in Homer’s epic, The Iliad. Rescue Plan Act, will again support general operating Our new word is Alliance. It is our deed. expenses. Cultural organizations can also use this money to rethink strategy and relaunch programs based on Lovers of the humanities know that words are powerful lessons learned during the pandemic. things. That’s why, this year, our board of directors dropped Foundation from our name in favor of a noun At AHA, we’re applying those lessons, too. As we plan that conveys our perpetual and foundational efforts — for a return to in-person programming, we’ll also carry collaboration, conversations, outreach, and diversity. forward new virtual solutions — making it easier for We are the Alabama Humanities Alliance, with a new more people to connect with our resources. The tools look, a new website, and some new faces, including mine. and scholarship that help teachers teach, encourage families to enjoy reading together, cultivate a love of Yet the mission has not changed. We’re here to make history among students, and engender civic engagement Alabama better. In many ways. Every day. We are an among all Alabamians. Alliance seeking and encouraging allies — anyone who treasures our shared culture, history, storytelling, lifelong In this issue of Mosaic, we present some of the learning, and sense of community. participants in those programs, the voices of our allies. I’m a son of the South who has roamed far. I spent a long Dorothy Walker, director of the Freedom Rides Museum career in journalism seeking truth and telling stories that I in Montgomery, discusses the still-powerful impact of hoped would make a difference in people’s lives. I came to segregation-busting stories from 1961. the Alabama Humanities Alliance for the same reason — Retired Samford University professor Jim Brown provides to make a difference. With our team and our board, we see context for one of our most popular public programs, the myriad opportunities to do good across our state, working Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street Water/Ways exhibit, with creative people to bring Alabamians together and now touring five Alabama towns through Spring 2022. uplift us all. And we hear from outstanding storytellers Starlyn and During the height of the pandemic, AHA supported Savi Fistein and Aiden Seabrook. They are high school cultural institutions that are vital to our public life. When students from Mobile and avid participants in our lockdowns and disruptions threatened the very existence Alabama History Day competition. of local museums, libraries, historical societies, and educational institutions, we stepped in. We want more allies like them. We need you. With funds from the National Endowment for the Alabama novelist Robert Inman, in Home Fires Burning, Humanities (NEH), we awarded $500,000 in emergency wrote: “Most of the failures of this world are failures CARES Act grants to 79 cultural organizations statewide. of imagination.” “Had these funds not been available, the museum most likely would have been permanently closed,” Nancy Let’s imagine a better Alabama enriched by the Pinion, director of the Jesse Owens Memorial Park & humanities. Join our Alliance. Museum, told us in a note of gratitude. MOSAIC: The Magazine of the Alabama Humanities Alliance | SUMMER 2021 5 New leadership New board members take office Chandra Brown Stewart Dorothy W. Huston The Alabama Humanities Alliance welcomed five new members to Chandra Brown Stewart is the Dorothy W. Huston, Ph.D., is its board of directors in 2020–2021. executive director of Lifelines founder and CEO of Technology Counseling Services, a United Way Management Training Group, Inc., Chandra Brown Stewart, Mobile multi-service nonprofit. a provider of information technology, Dr. Dorothy W. Huston, Huntsville program management, and training Lifelines Counseling Services Robert McGhee, Atmore solutions. Huston previously served provides crisis, emotional, financial, as vice president for research and Judge Tammy Montgomery, and housing counseling and development at Alabama A & M Livingston education to community members University, during which the growth in Dr. Ansley L. Quiros, Florence in southwest Alabama. She became research funding and contracting grew executive director in 2005. Brown from $13 million to over $30 million Stewart earned her undergraduate annually. She has also consulted and degree as a dual major in pre- provided training for more than medicine and psychology at Xavier 50 organizations and agencies. University in New Orleans. She has a master’s degree in community Huston earned her undergraduate counseling from the University degree at AAMU in 1979 and her of South Alabama. master’s and doctorate degrees from The Ohio State University in 1980 Brown Stewart is the co-founder and 1983, respectively. She is a 2006 of the Society of Clotilda, a joyful graduate of Harvard University’s health and wellness collective that School of Business Executive is dedicated to the celebration, Development Institute. Huston development, and prosperity of has participated in management Black women and their children. development in Canada, Brown Stewart also serves as a Netherlands, Belgium, France, member of the University of South New Zealand, and British Columbia. Alabama Board of Trustees, member She is also a graduate of Leadership of the regional advisory board for Huntsville/Madison County Class 12 BB&T Bank, past board president and Leadership Alabama Class XXI. for the Alabama Coalition Against Rape, and 2019 class dean for Huston has served on the board Leadership Mobile. of directors of Huntsville Utilities She is a participant in Leadership for the past seven years. She is also Alabama Class XXX, served as Junior executive director of the Tennessee League of Mobile president in 2014- Valley Diversity Leadership 2015, and as board advisor for the Colloquium and publishes The Valley Junior League of Mobile 2018-2019 Weekly. Huston is a life member of Board of Directors. Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. 6 MOSAIC: The Magazine of the Alabama Humanities Alliance | SUMMER 2021 Robert McGhee Tammy Jackson Montgomery Ansley L. Quiros As an enrolled member of the Poarch Sumter County District Court Ansley Quiros, Ph.D., an associate Band of Creek Indians, Robert Judge Tammy Jackson Montgomery, professor at the University of North McGhee has been involved in, and an J.D., is the first African American Alabama, is a historian of the 20th advocate for, Native American issues woman elected as district judge in century United States, with a focus at all levels of government. Sumter County and the first African on race, politics, and religion. She American woman in Alabama history teaches courses on U.S. history, In his fifth term on the Poarch Band to be elected in her first bid for Black history, religion in the U.S., of Creek Indians Tribal Council, he district court judge. She is serving immigration history and the history holds the position of vice chairman. her fourth term. of the civil rights movement. In this capacity, he represents his people “government-to-government” For 11 years, she was an assistant She is the author of the award- at the local, state, and federal levels district attorney for Montgomery winning book, God With Us: Lived on a range of vital issues.