TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Through an upcoming conference, an investigation of an African-American architect and a database for Civil War manuscripts, the Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South at The University of Alabama continues to broaden our knowledge of the region’s exciting and varied heritage.
The biennial conference, titled “Race & Place in the American South,” will be Friday and Saturday, April 11-12, at UA’s AIME Building. The conference will cover topics including “Veterans and Vagrants in the New and Modern South,” “Race and Leisure in the New South” and “Foodways and Folkways.”
“The conference targets new people in the history profession who are doing cutting-edge scholarship,” says Dr. Kari Frederickson, director of the center and associate professor of history in UA’s College of Arts and Sciences.
Keynote speaker will be Dr. Raymond Arsenault, John Hope Franklin professor of history at the University of South Florida. His talk will be 4:30 p.m. Friday, April 11, in Room 111, AIME Building. His talk is titled “Freedom Riders: History, Human Rights, and Law.”
In addition to the conference, the Summersell Center is engaging undergraduate researchers in projects that shed light on a corner of Alabama history – the designs and life of Wallace A. Rayfield, an African American architect who worked in Alabama during the first half of the 20th century. Using a group of five undergraduates, the Rayfield-Durough Architecture Project seeks to create a digital archive of Rayfield’s structures that will be available online and a traveling exhibit of Rayfield’s work.
“It is difficult to underestimate the importance of Wallace Rayfield’s contribution to the built environment of Alabama and the South,” Frederickson says. “As one of only two professionally trained architects in the nation, Rayfield designed and built hundreds of churches (of all denominations), homes (for whites and blacks), and schools at a time when professional opportunities for African Americans were sorely lacking, and during a period in which desperate attempts were made by southern states to enforce the rigid segregation of the white and black worlds.
“With phenomenal entrepreneurial skill and through sheer determination, Rayfield had a profound impact on the southern landscape.”
Rayfield designed three churches in Tuscaloosa – Hunter Chapel AME Church, which appears to retain Rayfield’s influence and design; Bailey’s Tabernacle; and Weeping Mary Baptist Church. The center is working with the Hunter Chapel to restore church documents – many dating back to the 1910s – and securing preservation funds.
The Summersell Center also works with The University of Alabama Press in developing a bibliographic database of all Civil War manuscript materials as well as the Bankhead Family History Project, a five-year program funded by the Bankhead Foundation that researches the impact of the Bankhead family on the history of Alabama, the region and the nation.
Generously funded by a gift from the late Charles G. and Frances S. Summersell, this interdisciplinary institute promotes and encourages the study of the American South with a special emphasis on Alabama and the Gulf South region and cultures, including the Caribbean. Building upon the rich resources available at UA, this center is dedicated to building an international reputation as an institution dedicated to examining the diverse cultures of the American South and the larger Gulf South region through research, teaching, and public programs.
The history department is a part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Team
Contact
Richard LeComte, UA Public Relations, 205/348-3782, rllecomte@advance.ua.edu