Hood Alumna Athena Richardson

By Jacob Russell//

There’s a phrase that has become so common that its meaning seems to have been lost to us over time: those who don’t learn from their history are doomed to repeat it.

Someone who not only follows this philosophy but strives to ensure that its importance isn’t lost on society is 2013 Hood alumna Athena Richardson.

Richardson is one of the leaders of the nonprofit Alabama African American Civil Rights Heritage Sites Consortium, or the AAACRHSC for short. She currently serves as finance and project manager for the organization.

“My role is to engage with HR and tackle finance and budgeting,” Richardson said. “I even get to handle social media and our newsletters.”

The foundation’s role lies in helping preserve and tell the stories of 20 historic sites across Alabama. The sites include the Dr. Richard Harris House, which was a safe haven for Freedom Riders and a base of operations for many leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.

But if you traveled back in time to ask a 16-year-old Richardson what she envisioned doing with her life, none of this would have even seemed like a possibility.

Richardson was born in Louisville, Kentucky, her mother being an Episcopal priest and her father a comedian. Richardson spent most of her early life moving from state to state, spending time in Kentucky, Kansas, Georgia and Ohio.

She decided to attend a college prep boarding high school in Sewanee, Tennessee, the same school that both her mother and her aunt had attended.

Upon graduating from high school, Richardson enrolled in the University of Maryland’s College Park branch, initially majoring in criminal justice.

“I wanted to be like Detective Goren on ‘Law & Order: Criminal Intent,’” Richardson said.

But Richardson withdrew from University of Maryland once she realized she wasn’t engaged in her classes. She instead took classes at Howard Community College and worked part-time while she figured out what to do with her life.

At the age of 24, she started at Hood College and continued to struggle with what she wanted to major in, until her academic advisor suggested that she talk to Professor Emilie Amt about history.

The conversation was a short one.

“My advisor said I should major in history since I did good in your class,” Richardson said to Amt.

“Well, do you like history?” Amt asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Richardson responded.

“OK, well, I can be your adviser,” Amt suggested.

“OK,” Richardson said.

It truly was that simple. The rest is, literally and figuratively, history.

Richardson also ended up minoring in African American studies, a choice she’d made after Professor Tamelyn Tucker-Worgs suggested it to her.

After graduating from Hood in 2013, Richardson knew two things— she wanted to work in museum administration, and she needed work experience to complement her history degree.

However, her dream to work in museum administration wouldn’t be fulfilled until a couple of dominoes fell, the first of which being her attending graduate school at the University of Alabama in 2016.

“I took a class about museum education, and there was a project my group and I presented to the Southeastern Museums Conference,” Richardson recalled. “I met our executive director, Priscilla Cooper, at that conference.”

Cooper told Richardson that she was working on a project and needed an intern. At the time, Richardson didn’t know the future that was in store for her.

On May 5, 2018, Richardson graduated from the University of Alabama, and by the end of the month, she was brought on full-time as project coordinator for the AAACRHSC.

The organization’s team is currently only comprised of seven members, but despite their size, neither Richardson nor her teammates falter. She’s forever grateful for all the people who’ve helped craft her into the woman she is today.

The stories of past Black revolutionaries are just as important as the tales of racial justice efforts that continue to be written, and the cataloging and publicization of these stories is what the AAACRHSC’s mission is.

“Working with people who are also passionate about preserving this history, and seeing sites from Montgomery, to Selma, to Birmingham, this is all the perfect combination of everything I’ve worked towards my whole life,” Richardson said.