The Morgan County Genealogical Society’s (MCGS) monthly meeting will be Sun., July 7, at 2 p.m. on the third floor of the Morgan County Archives in Decatur.

A short business meeting precedes the regular program, and light refreshments follow. The meeting is free and open to the public.

The MCGS July program’s featured speaker will be Dr. Steve Brown of the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities at Auburn University. Dr. Brown’s presentation is entitled The Most Prominent Man in Alabama: John McKinley and Early Alabama Politics.

Brown will use McKinley to discuss the broader ramifications of the Alabama Fever land rush and the social side of early Alabama politics.

His 2005 book, Trumping Religion: The New Christian Right, The Free Speech Clause and the Courts received the National Communication Association’s Franklyn S. Haiman Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Freedom of Expression.

He also received the National Faculty of the Year Award from the National Society of Collegiate Scholars in 2006.

For more information about MCGS and upcoming programs, contact the society’s program director, Terri Hildreth, at tleeh1@aol.com or 256-777-8153.