‘William Bradford Huie @100’ Exhibition to Open at UA’s Hoole Library

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The exhibition “William Bradford Huie @100” will open Tuesday, Nov. 9, at The University of Alabama’s W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library starting at 5 p.m. with a talk and reception to begin at 5:30 p.m.

The exhibition features materials from the William Bradford Huie Papers, donated to the library in 2009 by Huie’s widow, Martha Hunt Huie.

Martha Huie and Wayne Greenhaw will speak at the opening reception of the exhibition.

The Hoole Library is located on campus on the 2nd floor of Mary Harmon Bryant Hall.

A film based on Huie’s 1942 fictionalized autobiography, “Mud on the Stars,”  “Wild River” (1960, directed by Elia Kazan) will be screened in its original format on Wednesday, Nov. 10, at the Bama Theater in downtown Tuscaloosa. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. for a pre-screening reception and remarks by Don Noble, professor emeritus of English at UA, along with Jeremy Butler, UA associate professor of telecommunication and film. Noble wrote the introduction to the 1996 UA Press edition of “Mud on the Stars,” Huie’s first novel. The remarks and film screening will begin at 7:30 p.m.

Both events are free and open to the public.

William Bradford Huie was born in Hartselle on Nov. 13, 1910. He attended UA and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1930.

Huie wrote more than 20 books, with six being adapted into feature films.  He wrote for Look magazine on the murder of Emmett Till and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., which later turned into books, “Wolf Whistle” and “He Slew the Dreamer,” respectively. Other works include “The Americanization of Emily,” “The Execution of Private Slovik,” “The Revolt of Mamie Stover,” “The Strange Case of Ruby McCollum” and “Three Lives for Mississippi.”

Huie passed away on Nov. 20, 1986, in Guntersville.  He was posthumously inducted into the UA College of Communication and Information Sciences Hall of Fame in 1998.  “The William Bradford Huie @100” exhibition commemorates his life and work though the artifacts and research materials housed at the Hoole Library, while simultaneously celebrating the anniversary of his 100th birthday.

In addition, there will be a William Bradford Huie Journalism/Writing Boot Camp for high school students at the Bryant Conference Center on Wednesday, Nov. 3, from 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. The play, “William Bradford (Who He?) Huie, Voice of the Voiceless,” written and directed by UA faculty member, Billy Field, will premiere on stage at the Bama Theater on Nov. 3 from 7-9 p.m.

Additional Huie-related events are being planned for the spring semester, including interdisciplinary faculty and graduate student led discussions and readings which tie into Huie’s work and its impact and contribution to issues such as civil rights, journalism, 20th century film and other aspects of American culture.

Collaborating partners in the exhibition and other events include University Libraries, New College, College of Arts and Sciences, College of Communication and Information Sciences, Honors College, departments of journalism, telecommunication and film, American studies, history, English, program in creative writing, African-American studies program, Bankhead Visiting Writers Series, Summersell Center for the Study of the South, the Americanists, Interdisciplinary Faculty Group, Alabama Center for the Book, Tuscaloosa Arts Council and Southern Literary Trail.

For more information on the William Bradford Huie @ 100 project, visit www.as.ua.edu/wbhuieat100 and go to Facebook and Twitter. Also contact Jessica Lacher-Feldman, curator of rare books and special collections at the Hoole Library, at 205/348-0506.