Quick-Fire Quips is a questionnaire where we get to know people who stand out in the State of Alabama! This episode is all about community, heritage, and creativity in the Shoals.
Alabama Public Radio host Baillee Majors talks with John Morgan Douglass, senior board member on the Kennedy-Douglass Trust.
Baillee: Hi, John Morgan! How are you?
John Morgan: I'm doing well today, Baillee. Thank you.
Baillee: I'm happy to have you in the studio today! So let me just start with the basics. For those who are unfamiliar, tell me about the Kennedy-Douglass Trust.
John Morgan: Right. Favorite subject of mine.
Fifty years ago, my cousin, Reverend Hiram Kennedy Douglass, lived in Florence all of his life.
He died, and in his will, there was a provision to see that Florence becomes a center of art, leaving a part of his estate to what became the Kennedy-Douglass Trustees. And then he gave his house to become an arts center in Florence.
From there, fast-forward. It's a vision that has brought the community—it is about Florence council, mayors, councilmen, and councilwomen to the table—as well as bringing people from the community in.
The people in the Kennedy-Douglass Volunteers were formed. From there, it went to the hiring of Barbara Broach, who became the director for many years. It was in her terms that a lot of his ideas were initiated. We began with the trustees giving financial aid to benefits in both the Florence area and also to remember Keble College in Oxford, England, as well as some local school systems in St. Andrews, Sewanee.
The trustees came up—Barbara came up with the idea of making a project proposal to the Alabama State Arts Council. And we got several grants for that. This was to put art teachers in the schools around Florence, and then it also expanded and became a help to get camps and things for the children in that area. So that's really the foundation of the program.
From there, it expanded amazingly well, and this took off. The Kennedy-Douglass Volunteers came with the idea of Arts Alive, which is an annual event in May in Wilson Park and in the Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts there. So we've just gotten through that great weekend this past weekend.
It's amazing how far it has come in a fifty-year period. This is our golden anniversary of the Kennedy-Douglass Center, the trustees, and what the vision began and where we are now.
Baillee: Now that the introductions are done, let's get you warmed up for the questionnaire. And to do that, I want you to say "Quick-Fire Quips" three times fast.
John Morgan: Here's the first question. When you hear "Alabama," what do you think about?
John Morgan: Diversity. The terrain that we go from—a mountainous area, which astounds friends who have come out of Birmingham, out of Alabama. They can't believe that Birmingham has mountains around it. Also, great farmland from the Shoals area and Huntsville area, down to Baldwin County and Mobile County. So it's very diverse, and there are great places to go and see.
Baillee: Absolutely. Describe Alabama in one word.
John Morgan: Now, I'll say it's home.
Baillee: That's a good one. Yeah. What is a hidden gem in Birmingham that more people should know about?
John Morgan: First thing that comes to mind is the Birmingham Museum of Art.
Baillee: What is your favorite thing about living in Alabama?
John Morgan: The social rapport people feel, and I hope we make them feel that way—very comfortable, and to come back and visit us again.
Baillee: What is a bad stereotype or something that people get wrong about Alabama?
John Morgan: I think they prejudge us before they get here, that they have a stereotypical mentality, not only about Alabama, but the South.
Baillee: Do you have a favorite getaway spot in Alabama?
John Morgan: Well, one is up in the Shoal area to go up there and visit relatives. And I guess the other place would be on the Gulf Coast.
Baillee: So are you a fan of Orange Beach over Gulf Shores, or do you like them equally?
John Morgan: Oh, more the Gulf Shores area, and especially around the Fairhope area.
Baillee: Fairhope is gorgeous. Okay, lets talk more about your family and art and all of those things. Tell me about Reverend Hiram Kennedy Douglass.
John Morgan: Hiram grew up in Florence across the street from Wilson Park, got his formal education there, and from Florence, he went to Sewanee first. He graduated from Sewanee and then went to Columbia in New York. At this time, he took in all of the art from the beginning, doing the Metropolitan.
He went and did design artistry that he had a talent for, worked in some of the home-food places for the homeless, and was very active. He stayed there a number of years before going to Keble College, Oxford, England, which is sort of an Anglo-Roman theological school at Oxford, England, and got his degree from there.
He returned to become a minister and had churches in Tennessee, Atlanta, and Memphis—those places—before moving to Grosse Pointe, Michigan, where he was before returning to Alabama in retirement.
So he had a fabulous education, life, and all. And he kept up with many of his friends in places that he had been. In that period of time—and I believe it began in the 1950s—he began his genealogy work and began the Douglas family tree, and later wrote the Douglas book, My Southern Families, of which only one hundred copies were made and put into a state historical library.
The University of Alabama has one copy in their library here on campus. So those are the things that he accomplished. He had a vision for his own life as well as what he hoped life would be for other people.
Baillee: Yeah, he seems to have been a bit of a social butterfly, very friendly.
John Morgan: I would also put him in as a Renaissance man, because the city of Florence was built on that foundation: Renaissance. He wrote a history of Lauderdale County, that area, and had it on tape. It's now originally in the Florence City Library. He had his own radio programs in the Muscle Shoals area.
Baillee: Can you talk about his impact on art and culture in Florence?
John Morgan: Right. As I started out, his will gave the house over to the trustees and then to the City of Florence. It was at that point where his dream was that in that particular area, art should be important. It should be a part of a person's life. And that is the dream that he established throughout the things that he did in life and outside of life.
So it was just a natural flow that those of us who are on the team saw this dream and were able to facilitate it. I have to say, very gleefully, that the council and mayor of Florence embraced it. There are councilmen who were very active in the arts.
Baillee: Art can change people's lives. What do you think Hiram's reaction would be seeing what the art center has become today from his legacy or from his gift to the city?
John Morgan: I think he would look at it in amazement and a great deal of gratitude.
Baillee: What do you think his favorite thing would be about the art center?
John Morgan: I think that what he would really like is the fact that his home has become a place of hospitality that brings people from the Shoals area and of many diverse parts of life, and they all can assemble and find something that they will enjoy.
Whether it's in music, whether it is design or art, it all comes together. Even storytelling, which is a very prominent organization in the Shoals area. I think it's just the bringing together of all of them sharing.
Baillee: Do you share Hiram's passion for keeping creativity in the arts alive in Florence?
John Morgan: Definitely, not only in Florence. The Florence-Shoals area is a model of what other towns, communities, schools, and individual benefactors can do to transform their scene.
Baillee: Okay. Let's talk more about the art center.
John Morgan: The Kennedy-Douglass Center, which housed the administrative offices for the arts in Alabama, is what the city has brought together. When I say "brought together," it involves starting with the Kennedy-Douglass Center and expanding out into the community so that it took in the Frank Lloyd Wright House and the Southall House. Now it has the Indian Mounds Museum and storytelling—all of those have been evolving.
The center is the administrative place for it to come about, and it's where Arts Alive shines.
On the second floor of the Kennedy-Douglass house is a Hiram Kennedy Douglass museum about his life, some of his writings, and a lot of hand-carved wooden furniture that one of his parishioners in Memphis made. He had it specifically bound to different kings, royalty, whatever, and the genealogy and all.
So, yes, it is a lot to wrap your arms around with all that's going on. We have a director now who is in charge of all of this, and under its umbrella comes the Kennedy-Douglass house. Each year, the trustees meet to help with what he needs there at the house—art, and a lot of things that will help improve what we're doing and bring more people in.
Baillee: Do you have a favorite part of the house?
John Morgan: I guess what is a small library that overlooks Wilson Park. It's quiet, and it's that place one can find sanctuary. But that was a place where you could go and visit Hiram.
Baillee: You mentioned Arts Alive. Tell me what that festival is all about.
John Morgan: It's bringing together artists not just from Alabama, but the word is sent out nationally to national artists to come and show their work. It's open to come visit. It's a place that they can gain prominence in their field. The children and all just really make it a place. It's all the thought of the Kennedy-Douglass Volunteers that really keep it going.
This summer, the volunteers hosted a children's camp. If they can't afford to pay the tuition, then there are scholarships that they can use for that.
[There was also] the exhibits of the artists in this 2026 Arts Alive.
Baillee: The exhibit—the art on display. What type of art is it?
John Morgan: It can go from ceramics, woodworking, glass, jewelry and mixed media.
We had 126 pieces of art in the exhibit, but they were done by 75 artists. In other words, artists may present more than just one specific piece of artwork, so that really has an impact.
The other thing I would say is that across the street, where they had all of the tents in the park, there were 110 tents of people displaying their artwork to sell or buy.
The other thing I would say would be about the children's art: every school in Lauderdale and Colbert County that has art, at whatever level, could present their art in an open invitation.
Public and private schools were invited to participate, and then the art teacher selected the children whose work would represent their particular school.
Baillee: Are you ready for some really random questions?
John Morgan: Give 'em.
Baillee: What is one food that you can't go without?
John Morgan: One food that I can't go without? Fruits.
Baillee: Do you have a favorite movie?
John Morgan: The Russian Tolstoy—Doctor Zhivago.
Baillee: Tell me something on your bucket list.
John Morgan: Well, on my bucket list of things I would like to do, I would love to have made a trip to Oxford, England, to see the Douglass-Kennedy gates on the campus and just get a feel for that area of England as compared to Scotland, of the monastic trip that I had taken several years ago.
Baillee: Who's someone that you look up to?
John Morgan: I think right now, a person I look up to and like to see is David Brooks and his commentaries on life and where we are. He always has hope in there. It's not all gloom; it's "this too shall pass."
Baillee: What's a piece of advice that somebody gave you that you've never forgotten?
John Morgan: Not only advice, I think it was demonstrated: keep family touches—keep family connections, they are important. In my past two generations, that has been the cement that held the family together. They all grew up in the same neighborhood.
For example, like Hiram: in the area he was in, all of his cousins were right there. With my father and all that, when they moved to Mississippi, the cousins stayed in that place. Now I'm the only one left, and I have two sons.
Baillee: What do you want to be remembered for?
John Morgan: I hope that one thing is that when a person gives their word, whether it's verbal or written, they keep it. It's very important to me that truth be told. And if it's not, then just acknowledge it and be on your way.
Baillee: Here's our last question. What does Alabama need?
John Morgan: A very strong, quality education system that includes all—it includes teachers to instruct, it includes music, all of that is most important. And we have forgotten.
Baillee: That's it for today's Quick-Fire Quips, a questionnaire where we get to know people who stand out in the state of Alabama. That was John Morgan Douglass, senior board member on the Kennedy-Douglass Trust. Find us at APR.org for more Quick-Fire Quips!
