This book chronicles a University of Alabama historian’s efforts to engage public history over the course of a decade, highlighting personal and educational experiences inside and outside of the classroom.
Each chapter reveals how Sharony Green, her students, and collaborators used various public places and spaces in Alabama, including the University of Alabama and Tuscaloosa, where she teaches, as “labs” to learn more about our shared past. Inspired by her familiar beginnings in a historic community in Miami, Florida, the author, a descendant of people from the American South and the Bahamas, unveils her encounters with the built environment, old documents and objects, motion pictures, music, and all kinds of historical actors. The book shares a variety of projects including exhibits and displays, images, videos, songs, and poetry, that serve as manifestations of her encounters with the places around her and her students. Together, these stories uncover an unexpected journey into public history, offering new ways to think about the field and humanities more generally.
Teaching Public History Creatively in Alabama is an enlightening resource to both intentional and unintentional practitioners of public history, including scholars, students, and general readers interested in connecting with the past.