Africatown

My first visit to Africatown was by way of US Highway 90 and the Cochrane-Africatown Bridge, which spans the Mobile River. The river’s banks were dotted with dozens of factories. Traveling along Highway 90, one can see that Africatown is surrounded by various industrial markers, with oil storage tanks dotting the river and railroad tracks running through the neighborhood. The setting called to mind my own city, New Orleans, and the refineries that dominate its landscape. 

Renewed national interest in historic Africatown was spurred by the 2019 recovery of the Clotilda. Until then, the ship’s location remained unknown. Now, two bright orange buoys mark its sunken remains. Built by Alabama steamboat captain and shipbuilder Timothy Meaher, the Clotilda was used to illegally traffic Africans from Ouidah, Benin, to Mobile, AL, in 1860. Although chattel slavery was still federally sanctioned in the United States, the international trafficking of African people during this time was outlawed. Upon its return to the United States, the ship was burned by the enslavers to hide any evidence of its journey. Meaher traded the kidnapped people for profit, forcing them to work on plantations, including his own. After emancipation, the formerly enslaved people who remained in Mobile pooled their resources to buy land. They formed their own community—a place where they could be self-sufficient and self-governing—present-day Africatown. The Clotilda, once the stuff of legend, became a tangible reminder of the residents’ deep history. The ship’s recovery also brought an overflow of politicians, press, and cultural institutions, each eager to learn more about the last recorded slave ship used in the United States. 

The Clotilda’s return comes at a time when people across the nation are considering the weight of historical monuments—the narratives they tell, and which ones deserve space in public discourse, one that is charged and circuitous, and mostly revolving around markers devoted to mascots of white supremacy. Black historical monuments are rarely taken into consideration or given appropriate care to maintain them. Few were created from such durable materials as stone or bronze, or placed within city centers, or even given the form of figurative statues. Instead, they typically take the form of shotgun homes, church buildings, schoolhouses, or swaths of land that have gone untended. These historical sites function as communal spaces and evolve with the needs of their communities. Some of these sites have been bulldozed to make way for new housing, corporate developments, or both—a common scenario in cities throughout the United States. As we continue to rethink national monuments, it’s important to keep Black historical markers in mind. 

I cannot emphasize enough how the citizens of Africatown have, themselves, acted as pivotal guardians and griots of their own community. How they’ve worked to preserve the neighborhood’s past through heritage trail markers or murals. How they’ve guided Africatown’s future. During my visits there, I was inspired by the hope people had for their town—their desire to see young people return, to see homes reconstructed, to see once popular avenues and spaces revitalized. There is a constant refrain to remind visitors that Africatown is not just about the Clotilda. It’s about the community itself and the people who inhabit it. 

During my first tour of the area, I learned about unrealized plans to create a national park dedicated to Africatown. I remember the one-two punch of the history lesson. That the Cochrane-Africatown Bridge was completed in 1991, despite pushback from the community, turning it into a larger four-lane thoroughfare that carries large volumes of traffic through the small neighborhood. And that, in the aftermath, the state was unwilling to take up a project honoring Africatown’s historical and cultural significance. Nick Tabor’s book Africatown: America’s Last Slave Ship and the Community It Created digs deeper into how Mayor John H. Smith, the mayor of Prichard, AL, proposed a bill for the national park in the early 1980s. Smith had no familial ties to the community—nor was Africatown in his jurisdiction—but as Tabor explains, Smith, a Black man, held an affinity for the community. Smith envisioned a dedicated park that would not only acknowledge the magnitude of Africatown’s existence but also attract more tourism and secure environmental protections for the area. He believed Africatown could become a destination, if given proper care. Working with Alabama senator Howell Heflin, he presented the bill before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in 1983, proposing that more than 800 acres be devoted to the project. Smith’s bill was heavily opposed by Mary Lou Grier, then deputy director of the National Park Service. She argued that Africatown held little importance. Grier argued that the government could not pinpoint any “site, buildings, or objects of national historical significance,” and that there was no “historical integrity there.” In the years since, Africatown has continued to be affected by industrial waste dumped into the local river and by air pollution, both of which contribute to high rates of cancer there. 

Grier’s sentiments have stuck with me—especially her disavowal of any “historical integrity.” In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston interviewed one of Africatown’s last living founders, Cudjo Lewis (born Oluale Kossola). Lewis, 86 years old at the time of the interview, recounted his adolescence and the customs of his people. He could still describe, at length, the raid on his village when he was 19, the inhuman conditions kidnapped Africans faced as they crossed the Atlantic, the creation of Africatown, and the six children he and his wife, Abile, raised together. Hurston’s book based upon this interview, Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” remains a key text to understanding the Africatown community. Even earlier than Hurston, Emma Langdon Roche, an artist and writer from Mobile, wrote a 1914 book about Africatown. Roche’s Historic Sketches of the South includes illustrations of Cudjo, Abile, and other Africatown founders. Her drawings have been widely circulated, putting faces to the stories. Booker T. Washington was also involved with Africatown. He visited Cudjo Lewis and aided in developing the Mobile County Training School. Dating back to the 1880s, it still educates children in the region today, and is one of the oldest such schools in Alabama. 

Africatown Heritage House, which opened in 2023, is one of the most ambitious undertakings the community has led. Walking through the museum, I noted that the gallery devoted to the Clotilda was placed at the end of the exhibition. Before one could reach that room, the visitor first had to learn about the founders’ journey. Audio and writing about Cudjo Lewis’ life were present throughout the space. One section focused upon the names of the founders, as well as their country of origin and their relationships. A particularly striking moment came when I saw a memorial wall dedicated to Africatown’s founders. The mural features a group of people—with little detail given to their features—painted onto a slab. The multimedia installation displays the names of the 110 kidnapped Africans, with Africatown residents reading the names of their ancestors aloud. At the bottom of the panel is a long string of people listed simply as UNKNOWN—ones whose identities have been lost to time. Nevertheless, their descendants continue to acknowledge them, and each call of “unknown” stings. Only after spending time with this installation can visitors then pass to the exhibition devoted to the Clotilda. 

In the wake of my visit to Africatown, I’ve been thinking about the blending of time, and how the US prioritizes which narratives are worth preserving—especially ones within public spaces. Two years ago, at my sister’s urging, I visited the St. Joseph Plantation in Vacherie, LA, thinking that our ancestors might have been enslaved there. The trip was—as with any visit to a site of terrorism and brutality—unbearable. Unfathomable, considering the scale of human suffering. I walked with a tour group through “the big house.” I felt that I didn’t belong there, despite centuries stretching between me and the enslavers who’d lived there. We passed a ledger documenting persons enslaved at the plantation. The ledger listed people by age, gender, price, and date of purchase alone. There were no names. A levee separated the plantation from various industries teeming along the Mississippi River. Many of these corporations are owned by the same families that own, and continue to operate, these plantations—now tourist attractions. 

I found my ancestors, along the Mobile River, while dreaming about those who arrived on the Clotilda. While giving offerings to the water, I found my kin. 

Lines from Lucille Clifton’s poem “the mississippi river empties into the gulf” came to mind: 

         every water
         is the same water coming round.
         everyday someone is standing on the edge
         of this river, staring into time,
         whispering mistakenly:
         only here. only now. 

Kendyll S. Gross currently serves as the Assistant Curator of the Newcomb Art Museum. She holds a BA from Emory University and an MA in Art History from The University of Texas at Austin. Previously, she served as the Curator of Public Programs for the Art Galleries at Black Studies (AGBS) at The University of Texas at Austin. She also brings museum experience from the Blanton Museum of Art (Austin, TX), Gerald Peters Gallery (Santa Fe, NM), and Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY). In the spring of 2024, she curated her first exhibition since joining the Newcomb Art Museum staff in 2023. The show, Victory Workers, foregrounded twentieth century African American artists who depict Black labor.