Franklin finley africanamerican heritage trail. This is our fourth year doing the tours here in mobile. Actually they got started five or six years prior to that when one of our africanamerican city councilman took a trip to boston honesty business. While he was there, he saw a sign that said africanamerican heritage trail. He thought that sounded interesting, because it was kind of a novelty. It was prior to most of the museums we see today and the trails. He took the tour and he enjoyed it. He got to thinking on his way back to mobile mobile was close to 300 years old. And he had heard his family discuss about a lot of the contributions africanamericans had made. He said i think this is something we could do in mobile and do it well. He started looking around the city for someone that would take on the opportunity or the challenge, just depending on the prospective that they looked at it from. After nine months of searching, he finally found a young lady that said i will take on the opportunity. Her name was Dora Franklin finley. And dora was my double first cousin. Thats another tour. We wont take that one today. But she accepted the opportunity, and she spent five years of her life doing research on places and africanamericans that had made significant contributions to the city of mobile. When she finished, she had 39 locations throughout the city. Were going to visit about 20 of those. If i took you on all of them, i would have to find out how you like your fish, fried or broiled, do you want your steak medium or well because it would take about six hours. But she set this up to make it about two hours. I cant hold your attention much longer than that. When she finished, we start the tour from this location because this is where our city started from. They were the le moyne brothers. He asked them to find a shortcut to new orleans, and he wanted information about the Mississippi River for commerce because it goes all the way up through wisconsin. They set sail and they actually ended up in pensacola. And pensacola was occupied by the spanish, and they didnt want that r wwar, so they heade west. Our gulf of mexico is about 20 miles south of where we are right now. They took too sharp of a turn to the right and ended up in the mobile river. And they actually passed through mobile 27 miles north of here to a place called chesting, alabama. We refer to it as 27 miles north bluff sometimes. And they settled there for nine months. A great flood and outbreak of yellow fever broke out and pushed them back to where we are now. The first fort is about a mile east of here in the water. But ultimately the fort behind us was established. And this is a replica of the original fort. Its done on a 4 5 engineering scale and its 1 3 the size. This was done in 1976 for the bicentennial celebration of the united states. In 1702 when the city was founded, king louie xiv, being the gracious person he was, he sent ships with females over to marry the soldiers so he could grow this community. A lot of them did marry the soldiers and the community did grow. They had nicknames. Some called them caskets because they brought yellow fever here and some of the soldiers died. What we have found out also is they were orphans from the Roman Catholic church and their chaperons were nuns. Their community did grow. History is history, so we tell it as it is. There were other ships to come. Some came from the Dominican Republic. Those are concubines on it. The wives would allow their husbands to have companions. And a lot of these ladies that came from the Dominican Republic were companions, and they had children. Those children today we refer to as creoles. An africanamerican woman with a french hispanic dad, that offspring is creole. We have a Large Population of creoles as well as in louisiana. Well talk about creoles further into the tour. Just wanted to give you some foundation as to the city and how we got started and the fact that our city was in these walls that we see. That was the city. The moment you walked outside of those walls, you were out of the city. And this is where we started. And now well proceed to our first marker, our first historical marker, which is the slave market. The le moyne brothers founded mobile in 1702. They had the first parade here in 1703. So, when Pierre Le Moyne founded new orleans, he took that celebration in mobile and started it in new orleans. That guy looks like louie armstrong. Hes representing the bands that play in the parade. Theres an africanamerican king and queen statue as well. Thats how we say were the birth place of mardi gras is because they were founded 16 years before new orleans. And then i add my little footnote to say were glad that people think new orleans is the place to go so we can have fun and all those crazy people can go to new orleans. This is our Central Business district area. When i was growing up, we had no malls. This is where you would buy everything from socks to a hat, okay . Now thats changed. Its all restaurants, clubs, entertainment, legal offices, hotels. The nature of the business changed, and well talk about that briefly, how that changed in the late 80s. Okay. So, this is the site of the slave market where illegally kidnapped individuals were auctioned off in the 16, 17, 1800s, okay. And keep in mind that we are two blocks away from the water. None of these buildings were here, so the ships would come in and they would dock at the water. And they would have travelled for two to three months from africa with the illegally kidnapped individuals in the bottom of the ship. Thats where they ate. Thats where they slept, and thats where they used the bathroom. Environmentally, it was unbelievable. In fact, they say that the stench was so bad that no one would go below to check on them. And they would be shackled and chained in a slot about the size of a casket. If someone got sick or someone died, they stayed in that position until they got here. Eric knows that he would not have been able to survive in that environment. Those had to be some very strong willed individuals to make that journey. Once they got here, they would bring them over to this site, naked in shackles and chains. And they would keep them in this building for maybe a week to remove the abrasive marks from the shackles and chains action get them look something what healthy. On a day like today, they would have passed out fliers that theres going on an auction at the slave market. Individuals would be out here eating popcorn, milling around, and an auction near would step out with one of the illegally kidnapped individuals and they would start the auction. Black male, 18 years old, good health, all teeth. Start the auction, 100, 200, 300. Sometimes they would sell for as much as a thousand dollars. This was the First Time Ever of this type of slavery. Slavery had existed for centuries. This was something new. It was called chattal slavery. And chattal slavery is like you were purchased luke a piece of furniture, an animal, and you became idea that they were on a different continent, they had no idea where they were. But they knew they would be separated from their wife, their husband or their children. That in itself was creating a lot of big side and it was very inhumane. That is what took place here. Hopefully we will never ever see anything like that again, but that is what transpired here at this location. The john raglan slave market. The building ration over a period of time, and this is the side of alabama powers. They did leave the concept of a two door and a platform. So there was two doors and a platform that you can see and that is where they would bring them out to auction. Our next stop is africatown what. We are now traveling on land the same route that the last illegal ship with can f individuals to come into the u. S. Back in 1860. It was the result of a bet made by a local rich White Plantation owner by the name of Timothy Mayher. That bet was that he could bring in 100 illegally can have individuals in 1860. Keep in mind that in 1860, slavery was still legal, but the slave act of 1808 had passed and its said that it was against the law to import anyone from outside of the u. S. If you are caught and found guilty by a jury you could be hung. Timothy may hurt took the chance anyway because he thought that alabama was going to secede from the union and slavery would have been legal again. So he goes out and he hires a guy by the name of captain foster. Captain foster had an 86 foot screener called the clotilda. We will talk about the clotilda later in the tour. Captain foster than hires 11 crewmen and they leave out the port of mobile with 75 yards of lumber stacked on top of the clotilda. I do want to show you something over here. This building closed about a year ago. Do you see who it is policed by . Tom l mayher. Theres a police sign right there on the side of the building. Thats the same family, that is the fourth or fifth generation member of that family that owns that property. They have property all the way from mobile up to 27 miles from here. Actually, around 25 Million Dollars worth of property and most of it for lease. Very seldom do they sell it. We will talk about that as well, but i wanted to point that out because we are right in downtown mobile. Captain foster leaves out the port of mobile on the clotilda with 11 crewmen and the lumber. It looked normal when he left out of the port to the custom agents, as if he was going to houston or south america to sell the lumber. Alabama was known as a forestry state instill is, okay. But instead what they did on the way to africa, they built 130 slots underneath the boat to house the individuals that they were going to bring back from africa. So captain foster gets to africa and he gets to a country that was called the kingdom of dahomey today if we were to google that it is the country of benin. The first thing he does is get an interpreter and the interpreter takes him to a warehouse where there over 4000 naked individuals. Captain foster was somewhat shrewd until the interpreter, listen, the bet was for 100 but i need 130 in case some of them die. If i have to kill some or if they commit suicide, i want to make sure that Timothy Mayher wins that bet. So he told the interpreter to get him individuals from four or five different tribes, that way he would less of a chance of a mutiny upon return because they did not speak the same language. He also said that for every man, get me a woman and for every little boy, get me a little girl. I want to point out that if you look over to the right, you will see a bridge that is suspended like a ship, a two mast ship. The clotilda was a two mast ship. That ship was that bridge was constructed in 1995. Prayer prior to that bridge, we had a two lane bridge that would take us to the Eastern Shore and crosses the mobile river. Captain foster is at the top in the kingdom of dahomey in the process of leaving and some of the in slavery started retrieving some of the individuals that they had sold them. Captain foster had to leave in a hurry and he actually left about 20. So he is returning with 110 illegally kidnapped individuals. Somebody leaked to the custom agents in the state docks that someone was trying to sneak in 100 illegally kidnapped individuals. So they were on the lookout for the clotilda. And the clotilda was a very uniquely designed vessel because it could travel and navigate in the Atlantic Ocean as well as in our local base where the water is shallow. So they had an idea of which vessel they were looking for. Timothy meaher, someone alerted him that the federal authorities were on the lookout for the clotilda. He sends one of his paddle boats out into the gulf of mexico to meet the clotilda. When it did, they transferred the 110 individuals from the clotilda to the paddle boat and they hit them in the break. They snuck them in during the middle of the night and they all got off below that bridge. Shackled, chained and naked. They then brought in the clotilda by tow boat and they took it about nine miles north of that bridge and they set it afire. The reason they did that was because they said that the stench was so bad that it would have been impossible to clean it up and it would have been evident that that is the boat that those individuals came in on. During this short period of time, Timothy Meaher and captain foster were actually arrested and there was a federal case assigned to it, but they could never prosecute them because they could not find the clotilda. Well a third of those individuals that were on the vessel ended up in selma, alabama with one of Timothy Meaher associates. A third of them stayed here in this community and then there was a third that was scattered all over this area. 1861, not long after that, the civil war breaks out. When the civil war breaks out, those customs agencies and federal authorities leave mobile because this was a confederate hotbed. They knew their life would not be worth a nickel. As a result of that, Timothy Meaher and captain foster were never prosecuted. Those individuals say, we do not know where they came from. They just appeared. They realized that they they claimed them and found guilty that they could be hung. In 1863, the emancipation proclamation was signed. When it was signed it freed all of the slaves in the ten confederate states. Abraham lincoln being president was very astute. He knew that the next president could rescind the emancipation proclamation because it was like an executive order. We know what some of the current president s have done with executive orders, they would rescind it. Then most African Americans would have been slaves again. So he vigorously worked to get the 13th amendment passed and it was ultimately passed, but of course and we are entering africatown now. When the 13th and mend meant was passed, of course, abe lincoln had been assassinated. But when it did pass, it abolished slavery throughout the united states. When that happened, most of the individuals that was on the clotilda, they came back to this area. They said if we could give back to where we got off of that ship, we could get back home. That is all they wanted to do, it was to get back to africa. So they came back to this area. There was one gentleman that could always bring focus out of chaos. His name is, is african name was kwazulu natal, is america name was kudrow lewis because they could not pronounce his last name. That means monday morning. They said listen, we want to get back home. We need you to go and negotiate with Timothy Meaher whatever it takes, in order to get us out of here. Timothy meaher said, you know what guys . I have the deal for you. You can work for me and you will earn enough money to get back home. When it came time to get paid every friday, that money went for food, clothing and shelter. They never had any discretionary money. So they came to the resolve that they were just going to have to stay in this community. They did not understand the language or the customs, but they made a way out of no way. They brought their customs, their culture, to this community and they said this is our africatown. That is how the town got is name. Zip code wise, it is a part of mobile. It is about a 12. 5 square mile area and there is, like colloquially, there are three or four different communities out here. Theres plateau, magazine point, the hills, lewis quarters, they are all a part of africatown. So they ended up staying in this community. I will tell you, i stopped right here, because about 18 months ago one of our local journalists by the name of ben rain, was out in our delta looking for the clotilda and fishing. It was in january so the tide was low and he saw the bow of a boat sticking up. He said i think thats the clotilda. We had been looking for it for 160 years. The meaher family said it never existed, they did not know what happened to it. Well, when the journalist said this is it, weve got attention from all over the world. National geographic picked up the story and sent in one of their lead senior editors. He came in and in a short period of time, they said no it is not the clotilda. During that brief period of time, the community was awarded a 3. 5 Million Dollar grant. That grant is to establish the Welcome Center. It could be right where we are today. Thats kind of where i stopped at this point. That Welcome Center will hopefully be Something Like in imax theater that will give us a view of the life of the countries that these individuals came from. It will also give us a place to have this history preserved for these individuals that came here 160 years ago. During that Time National geographic also financed nine divers, international divers, to come into mobile to go out into the delta. Our delta is the second largest delta in the u. S. It is absolutely beautiful, okay. Thats because it is pristine. There are a couple of areas out there where kids got on wave runners and have fun, but for the most part it is in its original state. They go out and they were out there for two weeks, 14 hours a day, looking for the clotilda. At the time, they said we found ten ships. They identified one which is the tuscaloosa. They said we will present a comprehensive report to the community in an open meeting, but not today. Ultimately, they did. They came back nine months later and had an open meeting and said we found the clotilda. It is 25 feet under water in sand. Were not sure if we can bring it up, it might disintegrate. It is to be determined. They have engineers right now that are trying to determine if they can bring it up. They did bring up some artifacts and they are doing dna testing on those artifacts. It has been announced that they will ultimately be on display in one of the museums in the city somewhere. But the most profound thing that took place was the fact that they validated that that was the clotilda. Theres about 304th or fifth generation descendants living in this community. They were finally able to bring closure but that is the ship that their ancestors came over on. For 160 years it has just been a rumor because the meaher family never validated it and never presented a manifest and never stated that they had anything to do with it. It was always rumored. We dont know where those people came from, they just appeared out in the woods in shackles and chains. So this was a moment that those families, even though they knew from stories, but in the community and nationwide it was always a rumor and not validated that these individuals came in on the clotilda. That brought closure for these families when that took place. We are now at the old Plateau Cemetery that was established by kudrow lewis and the descendants of the clotilda. When door started the tour, this area looked like what we see over to the left. You cannot get in here. The trees and the brush had grown up six feet tall. They bring in the college of william in mary, the second Oldest College in the united states. The Archeology Department brings in their senior class. They borrowed heavy duty from the Eastern Shore and cut down the brush and trees at the way you see it tapered like it is today. Well if you look, there is a headstone back there that is about six feet tall. That is a commemorative headstone that was put back there for cudjoe lewis. He helped establish the cemetery, the church across the street, which is Union Baptist church, and the Mobile County training school. That was put back there in his honor. He is buried in the cemetery, but not necessarily did. If you look, some of the grave sites do not have headstones. Okay . That peaked door as interest. They then go and borrow Ground Penetrating xray equipment from the Eastern Shore and they came into the cemetery. Everywhere they saw a body in the ground, they put a thing flag. When they finished they had over 1800 flags in this cemetery. Some of them dont have names on them. You would had to have known dora. They found the name of every person that was buried in this cemetery. They found the day they were born, the date they died, their name, and in some cases what they died from as well as their military experience. Theres a buffalo soldier buried in the cemetery. There are world war i and world war ii veterans. When they finished, they had all 1800 names on the spreadsheet. When you go to our website and click on the old Plateau Cemetery, there is a pdf file in there with all the information on it. They did an enormous amount of work. It is a very spiritual cemetery. There are grave sites in here that are back from the mid 1800s. What you can go about 20 yards past cudjoe lewis headstone and they could not get the heavy duty equipment any further than that. However, there are grave sites beyond that. They just could not clear them out because of the terrain back there. You can see how the property over the last 100 years, because we are surrounded by creeks, and there are probably springs running underneath, and the terrain has just dropped down. This cemetery actually closed in the seventies. There are no burials being made in this cemetery as we speak. There is a newer cemetery to the south of us that opened right after that and there are burials that are currently being made in that cemetery today. The old Plateau Cemetery, when these individuals first came to the u. S. , they did not practice christianity. They practiced voodoo which was the primary religion of africa and haiti. They have a creole version in haiti. Ultimately they were converted to christianity and they warship at several churches in the community. Most of the descendants are buried here. Up until five months ago, we always said that cudjoe luis was the oldest surviving member of the clotilda. Hes 95 and died in 1935. However, there was a offer in the United Kingdom that have been doing research on the group that went to selma. She found that there was a lady that was on the clotilda, that when she got here, they forced her to marry one of the other enslaved individuals and they changed her name. They changed it to sally smith and she ended up in selma. She worked for a rich by plantation owner who ultimately became president of a bank there and she lived until 1937. So we had to put a footnote on everything. She was younger then cudjoe lewis, but she lived two years longer than he did. Most of them were between the ages of 12 and 21 or 22 years old when they came. She was one of the youngers that came over during that time. We will go to cudjoe luis, and there are still some people to practice voodoo. Every now and then when im doing chores, i can see that theyve had a celebration because theyve left remnants. It used to be around his headstone that they would leave silver dimes. That is symbolically significant in their practices. Every now and then i will see candles strategically located. So i happen to meet some of them and they invited me to their services. So im reading up on food do so that i have a basic knowledge when i go to the service. I wont be totally oblivious, so that i can talk about it more intelligently when i do the tours. This headstone was put back here in the year 1992. The mayor at that time was michael dull. We had a city councilman by the name of Richard Frederick frederick richardson. Doctor ivan kennedy assisted with the finances. It was put back here to commemorate everything that cudjoe lewis did in the city. We can walk back here and i can kind of show you. Theres not a lot of descendants left of these individuals in here. We can go back here and there are still grave sites beyond this area. They just cannot get to the trees back there. Theres a military private first class u. S. Army, 72. Heres one with no name on it. This is just heartbreaking. I dont know what you can do. Theres not much you can do without a lot of money. This is a descendant, he wasnt born in africa, but hes a descendant of the luis family. I there are some appear that i think were born in africa. This is 1834. This woman was a descendant of the clotilda. She died in 1906. Wait a minute, it says the age was 70. That meant that she was on the clotilda. Theres a Large Population in this area. We concentrate on the clotilda, but there were other ships they came from other parts of africa prior to the clotilda. Because we do not have a lot of manifests, it is a challenge to know what part of africa they came from. We do know that there were african slaves here prior to the clotilda. The clotilda was the last one to come. Born in 1834, this is a buffalo soldier. 1834, he would have been 26 when he got here in 1859. What do you think should be done here for this cemetery . Thats a good question. When i think about the meaher family, with 25 Million Dollars worth of property in this area, and no one has ever asked for reparations. I think this would be a Worthy Investment if that family could invest money in this cemetery to bring it up to standards. That would be a good investment i think. This community would appreciate. Mostly, we just want to talk to them to find out what they know about their ancestors. But i think it would be rewarding to see them invest in this community in areas like the cemetery. Theres also other work to be done as well, but this would be a good place to start. We are going to go to the church. This is Union Baptist church. It was established by cudjoe lewis and the descendants of the clotilda. Initially, again, they practiced voodoo and then they started or shipping at a Church Called stone Street Baptist Church on the south side of town. Then they moved here and established this church. The first two churches face the east. The third church as they expanded the highway and for other purposes they had to face south. I neglected to point out to you in the new cemetery, all the headstones face the west. In the old cemeteries they face the east. So symbolically, all they ever wanted to do was to get back home to africa. To get back to africa you would have to go east. So whether they were in church or whether they had passed on, they wanted to get back home. So its just interesting that is the way thats done. When she wrote the script for this, she wrote the history of the church from the previous pastors and how the church evolved from stone Street Baptist Church to this location. Now on the other side, what she did was, when she initially started this, these were some of the descendants of the clotilda. What he did in the first column was she put the american names like cudjoe lewis. He was from aruba. His african name was kazoola. Peter lee, african name was gumpa. He lived right there actually where they are working on the property. That was his homestead. There are no original structures in the Community Today as a result of deterioration, hurricanes, tornadoes, but there is a chimney on that property. That is one of the few original structures in the Community Today. But peter lee, that was his homestead. He was a descendant of the clotilda. There are some fifth generation descendants that still live in the community. Ive met some of the descendants. Ive met some descendants of the keeby family. Peter lee, cecilia lewis, charles lewis. Probably close to maybe 300 descendants, fifth generation, that live in the Community Today. Cudjoe lewis was always the iconic person in the community. Not only was he a mover and shaker, what he was just the kind of person that made things happen. So as a result, even today when decisions are being made, sometimes people say lets think about this a moment. Lets think about what cudjoe would have done. As a result, these bricks are the original breaks from the descendants of the clotilda. And this was just done two years ago, actually about three years ago, by a local sculptor by the name of april livingston. Miss livingston actually volunteered to do this and raised 5000 dollars to complete it. I put it right there with queen never tv as far as a finished product, its beautiful. This is africa town. Again, about a community of 1500 people today. A little known fact is that mobile is third with the highest number of Baseball Players in the hall of fame right behind new york and california. Hank aaron, billy williams, isaac smith, gerald williams, they all played ball in mobile and in this community and they are all in the hall of fame. And today living in the community is clearly on jones who was with the mets in 1969. Mobile County Training School on the left. The High School Closed in 1970 with integration, as a lot of other black high schools closed during that time with integration. There is a middle school and that middle school is still open. This bell was on the clotilda. They would ring that bell to start the ceremony. This is our latest marker. We just placed this marker right here. It has all the updated information on it6p africatown. This is the africatown bridge that was constructed in 1995. We are going to go down to the end of this road to show you where the park is going to be. I found something interesting. You see the sign over there that says chippewa lake, for lease . That is the meaher family. Those signs, you see them strategically in the area with property for release. This is kimberlyclark, paper manufacturing company. Prior to that it was scott paper. Right next to it was International Paper company. Both of these facilities opened in the 19 fifties. Now, these are to large corporations. They brought a lot of jobs, good benefits, good pensions, good health plans, into the city. A lot of people in the community worked at scott paper, or kimberlyclark now, and International Paper company. In fact, a lot of people all over the city worked at these two facilities. Well prior to that, africatown was kind of like a settlement. When these two facilities were constructed, the city of mobile annexed this area, tax revenue. Okay . And there were jobs that were provided. However, at most paper manufacturing companies, they have these large smokestacks that go up into the air. One of the products that is used for paper manufacturing is chloroform. That product would be burned and released, but sometimes it would not all dissipate and end up coming out of those smokestacks like little snowflakes. And chloroform is a toxic carcinogen nick product. As a result of that, it would of course get into the air, the water and the ground. Well a lot of people in this community have died from cancer. There are some class action lawsuits against the International Paper company. There are still clash class action suits that are still open today. I do not know the details or the outcome, but we do know that in the 19 eighties, the Environmental Protection agency came out to International Paper company and they did a study and found out that they were violating a voluminous number of regulations. They said you have to clean this place up. They did their own internal study and when they finished, it would be over 500 Million Dollars. They closed and moved out. Scott paper closed the section that was in violation of most of the regulations and they kept open one division that makes the big roll of paper. They met all of the epa standards. Keep in mind that when these facilities opened, we did not have an Environmental Protection agency. The epa was not established until in 1970. So they had been in operation through the 19 fifties, sixties and seventies and the mid eighties before there were even studies done. As a result of that, as i said, there were a lot of people that died from cancer. They used to be over 12,000 people that lived in this community. Now its less than 2000. Im not saying that they all died from cancer, but the Younger Generation are not coming back to this kind of environment. If somewhere in this area, there is a paddle boat that pulls up and those hundred and ten illegally can that individuals got up and hit in the woods for two days naked. That is until they were retrieved. Somewhere on this water. This is the mobile river. But at this point in time, the National Parks service had announced that they were going to put fishing piers and boat ramps and they were going to redesign this area for a National Park. So that the people in the community can walk to the water and enjoy, environmentally, this area. We have a lot of waterways in mobile and we all enjoy the water. It is peaceful. It is very relaxing. So that has been announced. I do not have the start dates and anticipated finish dates, but they did have a workshop out here and a celebration for the announcement. It is part of the blue weight grant that we have from the city that is also going to clean up a creek that we have that starts at the delta and it goes throughout the city for about 18 miles. It is called Three Mile Creek and we will talk about that a little further into the tour. Because it is going to be constructed and designed by the National Park services, it means its not going to look good for this one year because they have to maintain it. It will be well kept for the community to enjoy. So i think that is the plus side of that. But if we go north, we run into our delta and that is where we found the clotilda. This was the first of a two part tour of mobile, alabama. You can watch this and all other American History tv programs at cspan. Org slash history