MLP champions diversity — story by story.

One Montevallo, we’re better together.

The Montevallo Legacy Project finds, preserves, and shares stories of our town’s past. Our mission is to uncover legacies that light the way to a more promising future for Montevallo citizens. We believe in the transformative power of storytelling. We invite others to join us in the effort of creating narratives that imagine and foster a more inclusive future for members of all communities.

Featured
Culmination of the 2024-2025 JOIP internship project
Culmination of the 2024-2025 JOIP internship project

In partnership with the Jean O’Connor-Snyder Internship Program, the Montevallo Listening Project worked with University of Montevallo undergraduates Damian McCrickard and Bridget McCurrach during the 2024–2025 school year to explore the town’s queer community through digital storytelling and community organizing.

Their project traced Montevallo’s queer history—its silences, celebrations, and generational threads—by building relationships, hosting intergenerational events, and conducting oral history interviews. This blog post offers their final reflection, blending research, personal insight, and community quotes that invite us to consider the importance of community and memory.

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Untold Stories of Black Montevallo

Originally featured in Montevallo's Chamber Chatter, our stories amplify the voices of African descendants in and around Montevallo. While some narratives recount darker moments, together they celebrate the dignity, pride, resourcefulness, kindness, and hospitality of the African American community. Read on to discover the untold stories that bring our town’s rich Black history to light.

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Untold Stories

Montevallo African American Heritage Trail

The Montevallo Legacy Project is proud to partner with the Montevallo Historic Preservation Commission in creating the Montevallo African Heritage Trail. While the trail continues to develop, you can explore the current locations and future additions through our interactive digital map.

Interpretations

Interpretations
Culmination of the 2024-2025 JOIP internship project
Damian McCrickard and Bridget McCurrach
Culmination of the 2024-2025 JOIP internship project
Damian McCrickard and Bridget McCurrach

In partnership with the Jean O’Connor-Snyder Internship Program, the Montevallo Listening Project worked with University of Montevallo undergraduates Damian McCrickard and Bridget McCurrach during the 2024–2025 school year to explore the town’s queer community through digital storytelling and community organizing.

Their project traced Montevallo’s queer history—its silences, celebrations, and generational threads—by building relationships, hosting intergenerational events, and conducting oral history interviews. This blog post offers their final reflection, blending research, personal insight, and community quotes that invite us to consider the importance of community and memory.

Damian McCrickard and Bridget McCurrach
Forward
Elvin B. Thompson
Forward
Elvin B. Thompson

Elvin B. Thompson’s foreword to Untold Stories of Black Montevallo, Vol. 3 offers a powerful personal reflection on the town’s Black history—stories often left untold, yet central to understanding Montevallo’s true legacy. Drawing from lived experience, memory, and place, Thompson weaves together tales of faith, community, perseverance, and everyday heroism. From ghost stories passed down through generations to the spiritual roots of local churches, his words invite readers to honor the past while envisioning a future shaped by truth and remembrance.

Elvin B. Thompson
Lost and found: Meet the 2024-2025 JOIP interns
Josie Daisy
Lost and found: Meet the 2024-2025 JOIP interns
Josie Daisy

In 2024, the MLP partnered with University of Montevallo undergraduates Damian McCrickard and Bridget McCurrach through the Jean O’Connor-Snyder Internship Program. For their first project, the interns were challenged to interview and write about one another, using a multimedia format that incorporated photos, audio, and transcripts. This creative exercise allowed them to bring their work to life through exploring the art of digital storytelling.

Josie Daisy
The soul of the garden
Kathy King
The soul of the garden
Kathy King

Discover the profound significance of Montevallo's Memorial Garden, established in honor of two unidentified victims of an 1889 lynching. This garden, part of EJI's historical marker project, is a place of remembrance, healing, and reconciliation, reflecting on the racial injustices of the past and offering hope for a more just future.

Kathy King
Four years on: the EJI lynching marker revisited
Kathy King
Four years on: the EJI lynching marker revisited
Kathy King

Four years ago the Montevallo Remembrance Project, a citizen's coalition, partnered with the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery to bring a commemorative lynching marker to town. One of the coalition’s co-leaders reflects on the meaning of the marker, then and now.

Kathy King
Montevallo needs to change, or it is going to die
Josie Daisy
Montevallo needs to change, or it is going to die
Josie Daisy

After returning from an enlightening conference on queer history from the south, MLP Board of Director Josie Daisy expresses her frustration with Montevallo’s lack of vision for an inclusive future.

Josie Daisy
UM students reckon with untold stories of enslaved people on campus
Veronica Kloss
UM students reckon with untold stories of enslaved people on campus
Veronica Kloss

Students in the Fall 2023 Introduction to Peace and Justice Studies course at UM were challenged to write about the inherited narratives around King House that left out the enslaved people who built it. MLP Intern and student Veronica Kloss looks at this obscured history and proposes community collaboration in a project of remembrance.

Veronica Kloss

Help recover and preserve our history, our community, and our legacy.

Click the button below to learn all the ways to support our story sharing efforts and Montevallo history.