Estimated reading time: 3m 40s
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The last documented slave ship to enter the United States is now the subject of an exhibit in coastal Alabama. The slave ship Clotilda, arrived in Mobile, Alabama, in July 1860, carrying 110 captives who were sold into slavery after being kidnapped from present-day Benin on the West coast of Africa. The ship was later deliberately burned and sunk by its crew to hide evidence of its illegal purpose. (U.S. participation in the Atlantic slave trade was banned in 1808, but the smuggling of human captives still happened in the years that followed.) Searches for the shipwreck in the Mobile Bay took place over the years, but none were successful until 2019. Last week, a museum dedicated to the Clotilda and its survivors opened its doors. The Africatown Heritage House exhibit tells the story of the ship’s origins, its illegal human cargo and how some survivors of the journey went on to establish the community known as Africatown (now part of Mobile). |
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While 1860 seems like a long time ago, especially given that no one alive now was alive then, it isn’t that long in the grand scheme of human history. The time from 1860 to 2023 is two 81-year-olds living back-to-back. The last known survivor of the Clotilda, Matilda McCrear died in 1940 in Selma, Alabama. Descendants of captives of the Clotilda and those of the ship’s owner who orchestrated their kidnapping are still alive and met for the first time last year. |
"Some say we shouldn’t have conversations about that,” Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said during a press conference on Friday. “I would say to you, the descendants of Africatown and the City of Mobile, we have not only embraced a conversation over the last four years, but we did it on a world stage.”
Despite Stimpson’s celebratory rhetoric, his home state of Alabama, like numerous other states across the country, has sharply limited how educators can talk about race in the classroom, including a ban on so-called “critical race theory Under those restrictions, it’s possible that the history of the Clotilda and Africatown may not be well known outside of lower Alabama. But refusing to teach students about the history of their communities doesn’t make that history disappear, just like burning and scuttling the ship to cover up the illegal importation of kidnapped Africans didn’t make the Clotilda disappear. |
Introducing... Panther: Blueprint for Black Power
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You may think you know the story of the Black Panther movement, but did you know it got its start, not in Oakland, CA, but deep in the middle of the Jim Crow South? On this season of the Murrow Award-winning series, Reckon Radio, you’ll learn history that some states would ban from their textbooks. This is the story of Black power and voting rights in America. Subscribe and catch up on the award-winning series on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. |
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Got something you want me to dive into next week? Let me know at avelasquez@reckonmedia.com.
That's all I've got for this week!
Thanks for reckoning with me, Aria |
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