I think there is a certain kind of pride in being from Alabama that people from outside the state – and many inside – don’t completely understand. Despite the ongoing embarrassment of the state by its politicians – which, of course, has to be blamed on the state’s electorate – those of us who aspire to be better plod on and remain hopeful that the political fervor and fever around us may somehow break. The more progressive thinkers among us feel almost like an underground movement since we don’t get much attention – but we’re here.

Birmingham, by far the most progressive Alabama city, tried to raise its minimum wage and elected to become a “sanctuary city” years ago; both moves were thwarted by a Republican governor and state legislature propped up by an Alabama constitution that dates back to 1901, geared at the time toward advancing Jim Crow and limiting “home rule” for Alabama’s city and towns. When Birmingham hosted the 2022 World Games and mayor Randall Woodfin wore a tee-shirt declaring “I am from the Great State of Birmingham,” I knew exactly what he meant.

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I found a proud Alabama tribe recently when I attended an event at Birmingham’s Grand Bohemian Hotel that reminded me that we who hope (and work) for a better Alabama are not alone. Alabama Humanities Alliance (AHA) presented the Alabama Colloquium honoring its Alabama Humanities Fellows of 2023.

The 2023 honorees are David Mathews and Imani Perry. David Mathews was the president of the University of Alabama when I was an undergraduate in the 1970s. At the time, he was the youngest president of a major university in the country. Mathews, from Grove Hill, Alabama, was Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in the Gerald Ford administration. He left Alabama to become the longtime director and CEO of the Kettering Foundation with a mission to strengthen democracy through community involvement. Alabama’s Center for Civic Life at American Village was renamed the David Mathews Center for Civic Life in his honor. His books include Politics for People, Together: Building Better, Stronger Communities, and With.

Scholar and writer Imani Perry is a Birmingham native and a professor of everything, it seems (law, literature, history, cultural studies), at Harvard University. Her most recent book, South to America, was a 2022 National Book Award winner that everyone should read. She is the recent recipient of a 2023 MacArthur Fellowship – the much-vaunted “genius grant.” Her books include Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry and May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem.   

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, another Alabamian, was originally scheduled to moderate the conversation between Perry and Mathews and had to bow out after being sent to cover the war in Israel. She sent a video greeting and a “Roll Tide” from Tel Aviv, however, and was ably replaced by NPR’s Priska Neely, managing editor of the Gulf States Newsroom based in Birmingham. The ensuing conversation was wide-ranging, entertaining, astute, and riveting.

I was seated with friends and colleagues from Alabama Writers’ Forum, which supports literary arts, education, and awareness from around the state. The audience was diverse, and I definitely spotted some known Republicans in the mix, but the reputation of Alabama as a “deeply red” state – while evidenced by the politicians who seem to be perennially elected here – is misunderstood and misleading, perhaps, outside our borders. The “red state / blue state” trope, I’m afraid, emphasizes our differences more than our commonalities.

What strikes me is the fact that many people outside our state don’t comprehend that these sorts of public events and conversations happen frequently within our borders. In a time of condemning stereotypes, I’m afraid that certain condescending Southern stereotypes are still given credence by misinformed people.

Even so, it was rewarding to be in the company of like-minded and engaged Alabamians with a national influence and to note the ever-present hope and potential for our state and our nation moving forward. It’s always more productive, I think, to work for progress and change from within than to criticize from without.