Hosting a Road Scholar Program from the Alabama Humanities Alliance not only brings a subject specialist into your community but also provides the opportunity for you to share insights about your community. 

Organizations currently pay no application fee, but must plan an event and submit an application to the AHA by the first day of the month and 45 days in advance of the event. For example, planning an event for June 20th requires submitting an application by May 1st.

Follow these steps:

1. Apply for an presentation here - https://www.grantinterface.com/Opportunity/Catalog?urlkey=ahf

2. Read guide for completing application - https://www.grantinterface.com/Form/Preview/QuestionList?urlKey=ahf&form=1713767&opportunity=375784 

3. If the application is approved, you will receiving the following funds:

   • $250.00 - Scholar Honorarium

   • $0.725  per mile - Scholar Mileage

   • $100.00 max - Host Advertising Costs

   • Any funds not utilized must be returned to the Alabama Humanities Alliance

4. Choose from one of the following presentations:

Cartography, or mapmaking, has existed since the 7th millennium BC. However, well-known maps, just like well-known historical writing, are usually produced by those who exercise political power and overlook the perspectives of groups who lack power. This presentation focuses on the development of cartography from Black perspectives of community — including internal understanding of Black settlements often known as "the bottoms" or "the quarters" — as well as discussion of how to share such information with both insiders and outsiders interested in local history.

A computer and projection screen are requested for this presentation.

From the earliest arrival of African descendants in the 1500s in what became present-day Alabama, Black citizens managed complicated relationships of freedom and slavery with their White and indigenous counterparts. Court documents, maps, memoirs, and newspapers among other records document increasing pressure to restrict Black agency during the early 1800s that ultimately led to national division and civil war in the 1860s. This presentation will delve into the complex history of slavery in Alabama, how we contend with its heritage, and proper methods of utilizing controversial knowledge about the past to edify all cultural backgrounds in Alabama.

A computer and projection screen are requested for this presentation.

Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, organizations including the Alabama State Teachers Association, the Alabama Center for Higher Education, and the Black Heritage Council of the Alabama Historical Commission encouraged communities to preserve records and structures critical to their communities. This presentation will focus on their innovative methods and how all communities can utilize best practices in record preservation and dissemination of local history.

A computer and projection screen are requested for this presentation.

Alabama's Black historians — whether ministers, educators, sociologists, poets, or playwrights — tend to document the history they participate in creating. This presentation will address how Black citizens have written narratives of empowerment within their communities since the late 19th century, and how local Black historians continue to fulfill the roles of griots, or storytellers, in present times.

A computer and projection screen are requested for this presentation.