PRESIDENT

Sarah Creel Mitchell returned to her beloved Montevallo in 2024 after a seventeen-year hiatus in which she had the glorious opportunity to travel the world studying and teaching composition and literature. At this point in time, Sarah still finds herself situated within the academic machine–this time as a writer in the VP for Advancement office at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The best part of this job is interviewing people who are incredibly passionate about their work and translating their complex research for a public audience. While writing and revising never cease to be painstaking, the people and the research are always exciting. Learning about new ideas will never get old for her.

Before the winding path that eventually led her back to Montevallo, Sarah was a student at the University of Montevallo. The university left a beautiful mark on her, of course, but it wasn’t until moving back that she realized she really only knew one side of the town–the university side. Through MLP events and community gatherings, she quickly realized how richly diverse Montevallo truly is. Sarah wonders daily how she spent so much time living in Montevallo without really knowing it outside of the university; this realization ultimately led her to get more involved and join MLP. As president of the board of MLP, she hopes to help the organization continue to grow and support the town and people she loves. 

Sarah and her wife, Amy, live in the Arden neighborhood of Montevallo. Acknowledging the town’s history of racial exclusion and invoking eminent domain-related displacement, Sarah and Amy are raising their daughter, Leona, to be an empathetic change-maker. 

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

I’m co-founder and director of the Montevallo Legacy Project, a Midwesterner by birth and literary historian by training. I taught literature and writing for 25 years at the University of Montevallo and spent part of every year in London researching 18th-century English women writers hidden from history. After retiring, I began thinking about hidden histories closer to home. Where are Black people in our local histories? Why do their faces seldom appear in our public art? What role have African-Americans played in making Montevallo what it is today? And here's a thought. Wouldn't Montevallo be a more interesting place if we all knew more about each other? A new research passion was born.

In the years following a life-changing day at the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, I served as co-leader of the Community Remembrance Project, a citizen's group that worked with the Equal Justice Initiative to bring an EJI lynching marker to town in 2022. I served a three-year term on the Montevallo Historic Preservation Commission, the final year as President, and worked to get city approval for the Montevallo African American Heritage Trail. With Anitka Stewart Sims I research and co-edit the Untold Stories of Black Montevallo for monthly publication. I am excited to see MLP become a vital force for recovery of our town’s hidden legacies.

DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS

Harrison Neville serves as the communications director for the Montevallo Legacy Project. He’s lived in Alabama his whole life, and his family has been here for generations. He is passionate about preserving history and loves working to tell stories that might otherwise be forgotten. In addition to his work with the MLP, Harrison is the editor in chief and founder of The Sunrise News, an independent, online news source dedicated to serving the people of Alabama with honest and informative news.

Stephanie currently serves as the secretary of the Montevallo Legacy Project (MLP) board. She is the Administrative Assistant for the University of Montevallo’s Office of Engaged Education & Public Service (EEPS), which seeks opportunities to educate and engage young people who want to improve their community. This department also bridges the gap between college and career by offering essential volunteer and internship opportunities to UM students. One of these internship opportunities is the Jean O’Connor-Snyder Internship Program (JOIP), a grant formed by a partnership between the Dave Mathews Center for Civic Life and the Montevallo Legacy Project. Since 2024, this grant allows students to focus on community involvement by sharing lesser-known stories deep in Montevallo’s history.

Stephanie holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from Jacksonville State University and was honored as the Outstanding Business Graduate. She is pursuing a second Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Montevallo.

Stephanie is passionate about topics such as science, history, and mathematics and is interested in making them accessible, engaging, and exciting for youth. She encourages them to wonder about their world and investigate ways to keep it healthy for future generations. She also serves on the Shoal Creek Park Foundation board and volunteers with local organizations that promote access to educational tools for young people. She enjoys spending time in nature, hiking, kayaking, and learning.

Dr. M. Maxine Morgan, respectfully known as “Dr. Maxine,” is Assistant Professor of African American Literature and African American Studies at the University of Montevallo. She holds a BA in English from Tuskegee University and an MA and PhD in American Studies from Purdue University.

She specializes in African American literature and literary theory, Critical Race Theory, Black feminist and queer of color critique, food studies, and African American foodways.

Dr. Maxine’s teaching and scholarship center an interdisciplinary approach to literary studies and highlight the intersections of Black cultural politics, Black sexualities, and African Diasporic foodways in literature by people of African descent.

Her service reflects an investment in community engaged education and organization, public history and literacy, mentorship and advocacy, food security, and resource-sharing as Black feminist praxis.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR/WEB DEVELOPER

I am so excited for the future of Montevallo. The MLP highlights the excellence of the south, our rich and detailed history. But, Alabama’s history is widely viewed through a white patriarchal lens. It determines whose stories do and don't get told.

As a journalist, my duty is to provide a platform for voices that are silenced, ignored, or unheard. With the MLP, I take those stories, and amplify them through immersive digital storytelling. I hope our work inspires readers to redefine their own narratives.

Outside of the MLP, I work in sexual health education and advocacy for Advocates for Youth. And at heart, I’m mostly an artist. I work in many mediums but mostly video art and music these days. I am a queer woman, so expressing my creativity in non-traditional ways is incredibly affirming.

RESEARCH CONSULTANT

James Salter is a native of Montevallo, Alabama, where he graduated from Almont Elementary School, attended Prentice High School, and graduated from Montevallo High School. In 1979, he earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Business Management from the University of Montevallo, where he was a charter member of the Nu Tau Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

He retired from the U.S. Postal Service after thirty years of service. He is currently a board member of the Montevallo Historic Preservation Commission and a member of the Montevallo Historical Society.

With a lifelong passion for family and community history, James looks forward to working with the Montevallo Legacy Project by helping to develop the great African American Heritage Trail and other projects.

RESEARCH CONSULTANT

Melanie S. Morrison is a social justice educator and author of five books including Murder on Shades Mountain: The Legal Lynching of Willie Peterson and the Struggle for Justice in Jim Crow Birmingham. The work of racial justice is her deepest vocational calling. She has served as executive director of Allies for Change, a national network of racial justice educators, and as director of the Leaven Center, a retreat and study center in Michigan dedicated to nurturing the relationship between spirituality and social justice.

She is a Midwesterner by birth with ancestral roots in Alabama. Since 2018, she has been engaged in intensive research and writing about her Montevallo ancestors, Edmund King, and his daughter, Elizabeth King Shortridge, who accumulated wealth from two systems of theft: the dispossession of Native people from their homelands and the enslavement of African Americans.

Melanie believes it is possible to grow ever more aware of the history of systemic injustice without surrendering our capacity for compassion, joy, and hope.

RESEARCH CONSULTANT

Carey Heatherly is a native Alabamian. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Samford University, majoring in History, and a Master’s of Library and Information Studies from the University of Alabama. He joined the University of Montevallo’s faculty in November 2007 as the University Archivist and Special Collections Librarian, the school’s first. He has authored several pieces including an encyclopedia entry on noted Southern Gothic writer William Cobb; articles on digital pedagogy; and the books, Montevallo and Montevallo: Past and Present, both pictorial histories co-written with Dr. Clark Hultquist. He has served campus and the profession in a number of capacities such as chairing the Hallie Farmer Lecture Series, as President of Faculty Senate and as President of the Society of Alabama Archivists.