UA’s New College to Sponsor Folklife Association’s Nov. 11 Gathering Focusing on Cemetery Traditions

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Decoration days and other cemetery traditions in Alabama will be the focus of The Alabama Folklife Association’s Nov. 11 gathering on The University of Alabama campus.

Sponsored by UA’s New College, in collaboration with the association, the gathering’s presentations will begin at 10 a.m. in Smith Hall. Afternoon sessions, also open to the public, will begin at 2 p.m. and will focus on Alabama cemetery traditions.

Alan Jabbour, former director of the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress, will speak on his fieldwork for the North Shore Cemetery Decoration Project in North Carolina. The study’s incentive was a need to determine the route for a road in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park that would connect cemeteries made inaccessible when the TVA created Fontana Lake. The new road was requested by those who wished to maintain these cemeteries through the traditional practice of holding decoration days.

A panel discussion “Learning from Alabama Cemeteries” follows. Panelists will be Dr. Greg Jeane, department of geography, Samford University; Dr. Keith Jacobi, department of anthropology, UA; and Joey Brackner, folklife program manager, Alabama State Council on the Arts.

A performance by participants in the Blues in the Schools program of the Alabama Blues Project, and a reception, will close out the program.

Jim Hall, director of UA’s New College program, is an active board member of the Alabama Folklife Association.