Nancy Anderson, an English professor at Auburn University Montgomery, surprised elementary school students this week with a letter from President Barack Obama.

The students participate in the Young Writer’s Block program at the Molina Learning Center in Montgomery. After a sample of the children’s work was sent to the White House, they received a letter and autographed picture of the First Family in return.

To read press coverage in the Montgomery Advertiser, go here.

To see WSFA’s television coverage, click here.

Legg incorporates various iconic images in “Another’s Perspective”—work shoes, Bible, judge’s gavel—as well as actual objects such as a chain and torn screen window. In Thompson’s almost photorealist black and white oil painting, “Someone Else,” contemporary children’s shoes stand as metaphors for the perspectives that Scout and Jem bring to the narrative.

These large paintings are only two of 35 fabulous works of Alabama art, drawn from themes found in To Kill a Mockingbird, which will be auctioned on May 22 at Wynfield Estates in Montgomery. Proceeds will support AHF’s various educational programs for teachers, students, schools, libraries and museums. To purchase a ticket for the reception and auction, please contact Paul Lawson at (205) 558-3992 or plawson@ahf.net, or visit this link.

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Empty shoes can be powerful symbols of absent figures. Think of the many shoes shown in photographs from liberated concentration camps—and the actual victims’ shoes on display in various Holocaust museums. Less tragically, but still poignantly, empty shoes speak of rest from hard work. Among the hundreds of photos taken by Walker Evans in Depression-era Alabama is a stark interior, “Fireplace and wall detail in bedroom of Floyd Burroughs’ cabin. Hale County, Alabama.” Muddy brogans face a cold fireplace with a minimum of decoration above. It is a lonely place, barely a rough shelter for the sharecropper inhabitants.

Evans’s 1936 photographs—whether interiors, exteriors or gaunt poor whites themselves—had nearly as a strong an impact on Americans’ vision of the Depression South as did Harper Lee’s 1960 novel. Published in James Agee’s 1941 classic, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, the images have influenced many subsequent artists and photographers, including Alabama’s own William Christenberry. One of Christenberry’s photos will also be auctioned on May 22. Given Evans’s disheartening subjects—and Agee’s turgid prose—I doubt the 70th anniversary of that book next year will be celebrated as abundantly as TKAM’s 50th. But now that AHF has created a visual oeuvre for TKAM, I am proud to say both works have been made richer through art as well as words.

Written by: Bob S.

Pieces should be no more than 150 words in length. Please include your full name, the city in which you live and daytime phone. E-mail your response to rlitchfield@gannett.com. Deadline is 10 a.m. tomorrow.

Drive to downtown Mobile and stop by Boo Radley’s bar for a drink or fly to Capetown to dine in a restaurant that bears his name. One can purchase ladies’ clothing in Australia with the Boo Radley label. A rock band in Cincinnati, a law-school seminar at William and Mary, half-dozen popular songs, a champion West Highland Terrier and a popular British musical group are just samples of the thousands that have appropriated the name of a man who exists only in the imaginations of To Kill a Mockingbird fans across the globe.

The mystique of Maycomb’s lone recluse has gnawed at more souls that those of Scout, Jem and Dill. It seems the world has entered into a virtual relationship with his identity. Student essays, professional papers, psychological profiles, tweets and blogs have explored the psyche and social ramifications of Boo Radley’s character. Why?

On this 50th anniversary of the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird, Arthur “Boo” Radley still fascinates the reader in much the same way he intrigued the Finch kids and Dill. Ms. Lee wrote this story in an era when children and adults with special needs were often tucked out of sight either at home or in institutions. The secrecy could not help but engender suspicion and childhood fears.

Student essays, professional papers, psychological profiles, tweets and blogs have explored the psyche and social ramifications of Boo Radley’s character.”

Her portrayal of Boo does reflect those fears but, in a masterful stroke of the pen, she adds an uncharacteristic sense of trust to the mix. Subsequently, Boo Radley leads the reader to a poignant reconciliation of disparate feelings of fear and trust. So, thanks to Harper Lee for divining the name for a character that helps shed light on the plight of many misunderstood souls that dwell on the margins of society.

The Alabama Humanities Foundation congratulates Harper Lee on the 50th anniversary of her remarkable achievement and for helping to release the Boo in each of us.

Visit ahf.net/mockingbird for more information.

Written by: Bob W.

The book opens in Mississippi Territory days with the appointment by President Thomas Jefferson of the first territorial judge in St. Stephens, the earliest settlement in what would become Alabama, and continues to present-day Alabama, where the profession has grown to more than 16,000 members.

“For more than 200 years, the Alabama State Bar and its predecessors have shaped the development of the law, responded to the demands of a changing society and kept the public informed of its rights and responsibilities,” said ASB President Thomas J. Methvin of Montgomery (Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles P.C.).

Written by Birmingham attorney and legal historian Pat Boyd Rumore, the 336-page book recounts the rich history of the profession. It includes the individual stories of politicians and statesmen, jurists, writers, humorists, educators, war heroes and civil rights advocates who were Alabama lawyers.

The book highlights federal jurists who helped end the segregated “southern way of life” by their decisions in cases brought by Alabama’s great civil rights and civil liberties lawyers. The book also depicts the courage of women lawyers who opened the way for the expanded presence of women in the profession. It also deals with Alabama political history, which has been dominated by lawyers.

Holding political office was a natural outgrowth of a lawyer’s place in the local community and in the state. Also, the book traces the movement toward expansion and diversification of membership and improved professional standards of education, practical training and ethics, which are regulated by the Alabama State Bar as an arm of government to protect both the public and the profession.

Proceeds from the sale of the book will go to the Alabama Law Foundation and the Bench and Bar Historical Society.

Submitted by Brad Carr

Alabamians have been fixtures for decades on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Celebrated senators and congressmen—Carl Elliott, Bob Jones, Lister Hill, John Sparkman, Howell Heflin and others—have helped shape national policy and profoundly influenced American history in the 20th century. In a recent visit to Washington, however, I discovered two new additions to Capitol Hill, neither of which is a member of Congress.

In the expansive new Capitol visitor center, the newest state statue is that of Helen Keller, who has replaced the more obscure Jabez Curry as Alabama’s official statue. She is depicted in the moment she reaches out to touch the water from the well at her Tuscumbia home, Ivy Green.

Much smaller than the monumental figures around her, Keller’s bronze statue is both lively in form and human in scale. Gov. Bob Riley, the Alabama Council on the Arts and many other individuals and groups are to be commended for choosing Keller and her wonderful statue. I suspect that when other states decide to replace their own lesser-known (and stiff) statues, such as Mississippi’s James Zachariah George or Oregon’s John McLoughlin, they will look to the image of our own Helen Keller for guidance.

A few blocks east of the Capitol, behind the Library of Congress, stands the Folger Shakespeare Library. In this quiet and scholarly museum and archives, visitors can escape the tourist hubbub found in the Smithsonian’s museums on the Mall. While there I enjoyed the intriguing exhibition,”Extending the Book: The Art of Extra-Illustration.”

Unfortunately, I was unable to visit Alabama’s own unique contribution to the Folger—a television studio. As I am writing this, Alabama Public Television is constructing a studio in the Folger’s Haskell Educational Building. (The building is named for Birmingham’s Wyatt Haskell, who serves on the Folger board as well as the Alabama Shakespeare Festival board.) Soon APT will be producing from Washington both public affairs programs related to Alabama’s Congressional delegation and educational programs for Alabama English teachers using the vast resources of the Folger.

Congratulations to all our colleagues, partners and friends for expanding the state’s presence in the nation’s capital—in ways far beyond government and politics!

Written by: Bob S.

Reprinted with permission from the Daily Mountain Eagle, Jasper, Ala.

A writer from Mountain Brook whose latest book has a central character who hails from west Walker County captivated his audience at Bevill Hill Auditorium Tuesday with the real-life war story of Bill Tune told in his tome, “Mighty By Sacrifice: The Destruction of an American Bomb Squadron August 29, 1944.”

James L. Noles Jr. was joined on the stage Tuesday by his father, with whom he co-wrote “Mighty By Sacrifice.” The authors’ presentation given on the Jasper Campus of Bevill State Community College was in conjunction with “Read Alabama,” a series that brings state authors to speak in Jasper.

The writers acknowledged that they may not have been able to tell the Carbon Hill native’s story had it not been for another Walker County man — Lester Brasfield of Jasper — who had preserved Tune’s flight log book.

The Noles said the records book, which provides painstaking details of all of Tune’s 48 military missions, was invaluable during the research portion of the book-writing process.

The senior Noles said Tune’s meticulous nature helped provide a blueprint of facts he and his son were able to utilize. He said it was this attention to details that made Tune well-suited for the career he chose after the war — architecture.

Some of Tunes’ story was told to the Noles by Tune himself. Noles, Sr. met Tune in Florence, Noles’ hometown, where Tune resided prior to his passing in October 2008. Before he died, Noles Sr. said he was able to provide the veteran with a manuscript of the book.

“Mighty By Sacrifice” which was published by the University of Alabama Press, tells the story of Tune’s heroic, yet ill-fated mission to Moravska Ostrava, Czechoslovakia during the war.

The tale not only focuses on Tune, but also brings to life other members of the 20th Squadron of the 2nd Bombardment Group that took part in an attack on an oil refinery and associated railroad yards in Czechoslovakian village during the summer of 1944.

During Tuesday’s program that was accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation, the junior Noles, a Birmingham attorney, told his audience that the auditorium reminded him of a scene from the book that takes place in a similar facility in which squadron members learned the specifics of their upcoming mission.

While on stage, Noles Jr. told of the young men who took part in the bomber offensive, some who didn’t survive the encounter.

Noles Jr. said two of the 10 soldiers who performed duties on Tune’s aircraft were killed when the plane was shot down. Miraculously, Tune, who was unconscious when he was tossed out of the airplane, managed to deploy his parachute and land safely.

Noles Sr. speculated that Tune may have regained consciousness when he was struck by the aircraft — a blow that broke the young man’s leg.

Tune and five other soldiers who escaped from the plane before it went down were captured by enemy combatants and kept as prisoners of war for nine months. One of the two soldiers who escaped capture did so by hiding out with area pig farmers until the end of the war.

Fifty years after the air battle, Moravska Ostrava, Czechoslovakia commemorated the American soldiers who participated in the conflict, inviting them to return to the country. Tune was one of those who made the trip.

Since then, many of the veterans involved in the battle — as well as Noles Sr. — have made trips to the village.

“He went in 2004,” Noles Jr. said about his father. “He accompanied Lloyd Dickenson, who was Bill Tune’s navigator.”

Noles Jr. added that the Czechoslovakian community has a mass each year to honor the airmen lost in the battle. Also he said the village has a special name for the field where they recovered the body of Russell Myrick, the bombardier on Tune’s aircraft who was not able to escape from the plane before it went down, exploding on impact.

“They call that field ‘America,’” he said.

Noles Jr. has written about eight other books, including “A Pocketful of History: Four Hundred Years of America-One State Quarter at a Time.” His father said “Mighty By Sacrifice” is his first — and last — book.

“It’s a long process,” he said. “It’s a lot of work.”

Despite the arduous task, Noles, 63, a retired brigadier general in the U.S. Army, said writing the book was “worth every minute of it.”

Noles Jr. said he enjoyed the experience of working with his father. “It was good to have a project spending time together,” he said, adding his father had “a great rapport” with the veterans interviewed for the book.

Noles Sr. said a highlight of the experience was presenting a copy of the book to Tune’s widow, Fran, who passed away in 2009. He added that he gained respect for Tunes’ parents while writing the story.

“I absolutely fell in love with the Tunes,” he said, pointing out that the matriarch of the family, Beulah Tune, insisted that each of her four children learn to play a musical instrument, and not attend the one-room school in Jagger, a now defunct Walker County community where they lived, but instead attend school in Carbon Hill, a town that was four miles away.

The Noles’ presentation was the second lecture in the “Read Alabama” series. Kathryn Tucker Windham was the first author featured in the 2010 series. She spoke at the auditorium on Feb. 16.

The Noles will be followed by Robert McCammon on March 16. The series will conclude on March 31 when Pulitzer Prize-winning author Rick Bragg comes to town. Unlike the previous presentations that have been on Tuesdays at Bevill Hill Auditorium, Bragg will speak at Rowland Auditorium on a Wednesday afternoon.

Noles, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and the University of Texas School of Law, facetiously thanked organizers for bringing him and his father to the stage to follow Windham, who attracted a standing-room-only audience during her Fat Tuesday appearance.

The author added he had high praise for the “Read Alabama” program.

“It is a first-rate operation and one of my favorite speaking engagements,” Noles Jr. said. “If anything is going to inspire me to do another book, it will be to have an excuse to come back to Jasper.”

After the speech, the Noles autographed copies of “Mighty By Sacrifice” and other books written by Noles Jr.

Noles Sr. said readers who opt to wait for the movie probably won’t see Tune’s tale told on the Silver Screen.

“It’s not likely to be a Hollywood movie,” he said. “There’s no embellishment in there.”

After reading the article about industrial baseball leagues in Alabama and Vulcan Park and Museum’s “From Factory to Field” exhibition in the Winter/Spring 2010 issue of Mosaic, Doug Purcell, executive director of the Historic Chattahoochee Commission, sent us this photo and message:

Attached is a photo of James Prestley (Buster) Waits, taken c. 1910 in the Grasselli area of present-day Birmingham. His father, Major Prestley Waits (1878-1938), was the manager of Grasselli Chemical Company (GCS). It is possible that GCS had a baseball team and Buster Waits was its “mascot.” Buster Waits was born in late 1904 in Grasselli and died in 1980 in Birmingham. He was the oldest son of Major Prestley Waits. “Major” was a given name–not a military rank.

AHF would like to thank Mr. Purcell for his interest in our magazine and grant-funded program “From Factory to Field,” and we encourage all members of the public to share your pictures and stories with us.

The exhibition “From Factory to Field,” opening April 1 at Vulcan Park and Museum, examines the phenomenon of America’s favorite pastime in Birmingham. The exhibit celebrates the 100th anniversary of Rickwood Field (pictured above), America’s oldest operational ballpark, and dispels the common myth that baseball made its way south through former Confederate prisoners of war, who learned the sport from Union captors.

“From Factory to Field” argues that Birmingham, in fact, embraced baseball for the same reasons that northern industrialized cities in the late 1800s did. Rail lines probably brought the idea of baseball to Birmingham, and the sport took hold because the game appealed to time-clock-based industrial society, which included immigrants and rural transplants who needed outdoor recreation in an urban setting as a means of assimilation and socialization. Baseball’s blend of teamwork and individualism,
two characteristics also applicable to an effective factory worker, reflect industrial work patterns. The industrial league system became a pool of talent for the town’s two professional ball teams: the Barons and the Black Barons. Baseball mirrored segregated life in Birmingham at the time. There are anecdotal reports of black and white teams playing one another and players being arrested in violation of city code.

The great Mobile-born pitcher Satchel Paige, who played for the Black Barons from 1927 to 1929, went on to play for the Cleveland Indians in 1948 at the age of 42, making him the game’s oldest rookie. Fairfield’s pride and joy, Willie Mays, went from playing for Fairfield’s industrial league team to eventually playing for the New York Giants. “From Factory to Field” celebrates these African-American players and others and discusses how they advanced civil rights in the city. The exhibition concludes with the desegregation of baseball and the modern-day Barons. Baseball is a compelling lens through which to view the social changes in Birmingham’s history.