Transcripts For CSPAN2 Ben Raines The Last Slave Ship 20220723

Library and bpl presents the libraries arts and culture team. Tonight i am thrilled to welcome ben raines author of the new book the last slave ship the true story of how katilda was found her descendants and an extraordinary reckoning. It is rains who in 2019 discovered the infamous ship which brought the last enslaved africans to america and then disappeared for 160 years. The book is a powerful timely narrative described by the washington informer as an actionpacked. Whip smart true account thats filled with science history and compassion. Rains conversation partner tonight is professional professor schwande mustachean. So before i introduced the two of them, i have a few very quick notes first. We are going to put in the chat a link to the website of a local brooklyn bookstore the Community Bookstore so that you can easily with a click or two explore the book and purchase it if youre so inclined. Second like all of our talks you have the option to use closed captioning. That button is at the bottom of your screen and finally in most importantly youre invited to share your questions tonight. Just type them into the q a box at the bottom of your screen and we will take as many as possible towards the end of the program. Now, let me say a word to about each of our guests and and hand it off to them. Ben raines is an awardwinning environmental journalist filmmaker and charter captain who lives in fairhope, alabama. His earlier book is called saving americas amazon the threat to our nations most biodiverse river system. Hi, ben. Okay, i was muted. Im back good to see you. Thank you for having me. Im excited to be here. So one day and was was the kim is a historian with specializations and slavery at sea medicine black womens history terror violence policing and public memory. Shes currently in associate professor in the departments of history and african and African American studies at washington university. She is the author of the awardwinning book slavery at sea terror sex and sickness in the Middle Passage. Welcome day. Thank you so much. Well, im excited to hear this conversation. So im going to disappear and hand it off to you. Thank you both for being here. Okay . All right, and thank you to everyone being here this evening and for seeing value for these incredible conversations that were about to have this evening. So again, i want to thank the Brooklyn Public Library and more importantly for bringing us both myself and been into direct conversation with the world all at once. So ben i have to start you open up pull me in immediately a secret beneath the murky waters of an alabama swamp has been revealed. A secret in alabama, so can you maybe pull back and tell us how you came to the secret then . Well talk a little bit more about the secret and then ill follow up with Something Else that perhaps is even connected with believability of African Americans or africans. So lets start with what drew you in . So i was an Investigative Reporter here in mobile for 20 years and i did a lot i was an environmental journalist primarily writing about contamination in often in minority Communities Just like africa town and so in that 20 years i never once thought about looking for the clotilde and it was this sort of urban legend almost in in mobile where people said, oh, yeah the clotilde and but you know, they just talk about that in africa town and it was kind of dismissed, but there was a big mural you would drive by all the time, you know my association with africa town was that they were big paper mills there and asphalt factories and a lot of sewer spills and i would go, you know one of my first stories here in mobile 20, some years ago was a woman who every time it rained her yard flooded with raw sewage and i would go there and i would put her in the paper over and over and we would be talking about across a mode of sewage. That was africa town, you know to me that was like they were i was trying to fix these problems and stuff. So a few years ago a buddy of mine who used to work in the paper with me. Jeff dude called me up and said hey, you should look for the clotilde and i didnt really even understand at that point. This was 2017. I didnt really even understand it was lost. I just knew the last slave ship had come into mobile. I didnt know the whole story that involved burning this ship to hide it and that it had been illegal to bring in enslaved people when it happened and all that stuff. My friend had heard a local historian on the radio whos actually the city of mobile historian. And he said this is the greatest mystery in americas maritime history if we could ever find the clotilda that would really be something so im on the phone. My friend says you got to look for the clotilda and i just dismissed it. I was like thats like looking for pirate treasure. Thats ridiculous. Im not gonna find a ship thats been missing for 160 years. But we hung up the phone and i typed clotilde into google and was instantly sucked in bought all the books and started going to the primary Historical Documents that were many of them housed in mobile in the Public Library in places like that. And that was thats how i got started and here we are now. Well, i have to say thank you for that because its interesting when we move beyond a legend and then begin to actually give credit to truth that that has been transmitted. So even by the fourth page were hearing descendants saying that we were called liars and that we werent believed. So what was it that made you believe . This story this this you know these many black people who had passed along history and history. Well one of the key elements had to be sylvia induce book and and its a dreams of africa in alabama and the moment i started reading that you know, it is such a welldocumented history. Theres no denying it. It was you know, it was very clear to me. This all happened. This is all this is all true. This ship is somewhere in this giant swamp north immobile, which is called the mobile 10 saw delta where i happened to make part of my living as a river guide i take people in my boat and we go look. This is the most diverse swamp in the but the most diverse river system in north america, and this is a quick little side, but alabama has more species of fish turtles salamander snails muscles you name it aquatic creatures than any other state and has more species per square mile than any other state. So thats my association with the swamp. Ive been writing about it and studying studying it for 20 some years. And so i was already intimately familiar with it and the mayors famously that this the family that that did the clotilda mission the was this man timothy mayor who was a steamboat captain in alabama and became very very prosperous and prominent had nine steamboats and basically made became one of the richest people on the gulf coast moving cotton up and down the rivers and he owned plantation and his brothers all had plantations. Um, so theyre still here theyre descendants are still here. Theres a state park that i launched my boat from all the time. That is mayor state park named after one of the brothers who participated in the clotilda in bringing these, you know, kidnapping these people and bringing them. So thats how present they are in modern day mobile. And so that you know, there was that it just it was right there and i was like well if that ship is in that swamp, which i know intimately and and this is a big swamp. Its about 13 miles wide and about 60 miles long. Um, so imagine that for a minute were talking about 250,000 acres and they supposedly burned a ship somewhere in there. So that was kind of the you know, the it i new it was real. I knew these were real people their descendants were here and it wasnt that long ago. I have interact had interactions with one of the members of the mayor family. Who was timothy mayors greatgrandson. He just died a few weeks ago, but thats how close this is, you know, the descendants in africa town are great. Great or great grandchildren. This is not that long ago and i just thought i could i could tease out the mystery if i started digging into it. Well, thank you for believing the story and then again pursuing the mystery. So lets dive into the mystery. I really want to start with the bit because something so casual within lead to absolute destruction of lives. So can we can we start there possibly . Yeah, and so the bed is very famous. Timothy mayor famously made a bet on his steamboat one night that he could bring in a load of enslaved people. One of the things i did was tease out why he made this bet what was going on in america that made him make this bizarre bet if you think about it, and so um to set the stage bringing in enslaved people had been outlawed in 1808. There was when they when they wrote the declaration of independence and the constitution there was they were trying to kind of cater to the Southern States and they said all right, were not going to do anything regarding slavery for 20 years and 20 years to the day after they made that deal in the Constitutional Congress and all that thomas. Jefferson signed a new law making it illegal to bring in enslaved people in 1808. So Flash Forward we are now in 1859 on the deck of mayor steamboat. And theres this debate going on and so you know, this was picture antebellum, alabama the South Plantations big hoop skirts. Thats thats the world. Were in. Incredible wealth here in mobile very wealthy people are on mayor steamboat within and there its after dinner. Theyre out on the deck. Theyre Smoking Cigars drinking whiskey and talking and what they were talking about is a case that was going on in georgia regarding regarding a ship called the wanderer. And a flamboyant playboy there and named Charles Augustus lamar ridiculous name. Who was mixed up in horse racing and gold mining all kind he was wasting his familys massive wealth all kinds of ways. Um, and so he sent a ship to africa with the idea, you know, his dad was cutting him off financially because he was just a spendthrift so he came up with the idea of i can send a ship to africa and buy humans for a hundred dollars and bring them back here and sell them for a thousand five hundred dollars. So he was literally trying to make money. And so he sent the ship. It came back to, georgia. They offloaded the people and then a few weeks later word was out and and he got arrested and they put him on trot trial was covered nationwide the New York Times was writing about it the new york tribune. In fact charles the man i mentioned famously challenged the editors of both the New York Times and the new york tribune to duels and during his court case. He challenged a Navy Commodore who was testifying against him to a duel and they went out in the street and magically missed each other. So there this guys on trial for his life because illegal slaving was a hanging offense. It was a capital crime. So mayor and the people on his boat were talking about that case and there were a couple of yankees on the boat and one of them said, i think they should hang the lot of to scare everyone else off from doing this talking about people bringing in slaves. Well, the the south economy was tied up in the price of slaves. So in the northern slave states, maryland, virginia, you could buy a person for about five hundred dollars but down in South Alabama and in alabama period in georgia, you know where they were really growing cotton. The price of enslaved people had tripled or quadrupled so they were a or 2,000. Now you have to understand in todays money. Were talking about 55,000. Huge amount of money a big increase so a lot of people wanted to reopen the atlantic slave trade. So that the price of people would go back down to like charles said, oh i get them for a hundred bucks in africa. That that was the whole story of the alamo. You know that that whole deal was trying to make texas a slave state, you know, we hear this. Oh save the alamo, but theres another story there. So on the deck of the boat mayor says nonsense, theyll hang nobody i could do it myself and bring in a load inside of two years. And he said about doing it and within about eight months he had accomplished the task and and you know, he won this bet he made and his reason was a little bit different than charles who was trying to raise money mayor wanted to thumb his nose at the government. He wanted to be a man of action. He wanted to aggressively say i can do this. And so the whole time the ship was sailing to africa, he bragged all over mobile that he had done this so much so that the point that the local paper ran an article saying the clotilda has gone to africa for a lot of slaves and that ran in papers around the country. Which later came back to haunt him, but we can get into that in a minute. Thank you. Yes it um again going back to what may seem so casual but quite the statement to say im gonna take on the government while an economy is crumbling and then trying to and then also being inspired openly then for that to be in the media while this is now illegal. So lets talk about the void. Well, you know the the passage over but more importantly the world of deals that he would walk into so youre going with confidence, but then lets talk about where he went and then the world that he went into well, so an important caveat here merit didnt go he hired somebody because he was trying to put somebody else at risk, so he hired this man captain William Foster and foster gathered up a group of itinerate sailors men of the masked as he called him, but he he sought out people who had no family connections in mobile. You have to see mobile back then was the so the ports in america the three top ports were new York New Orleans and mobile. New orleans and mobile were shipping cotton out all over to europe and the rest of the world. Incredible wealth had come to these places and and so foster goes, you know. Leaves from here with 27 pounds of gold that Timothy Mayer had given him and Timothy Mayer had paid him 35,000 to do this. Which and promised him 10 of the enslaved people when they get back so foster if he did this risking his life mission. And went to africa he was looking at making about a million and a half dollars in todays month. So he was purely a mercenary going to do this. So hes gathered these people from from you know mobile, which was like a pirates of the caribbean kind of port you have to i mean there were foreigners all over money everywhere was a very exotic place at the time. So he gathers up these itinerant sailors. They dont know that theyre on a slaving mission and they leave so mayor they set sail right after they get past cuba. They hit a hurricane that that just does bad damage to the ship and almost tears the rudder off. The ship is crippled. It cant make an Atlantic Crossing so they pull into a caribbean port. And and and to repair the ship. When theyre in the port well before they get to the port one thing happens. Theyre being chased by an antislaving squadron ship a british man of war. Patrolling the waters for slaving ships and even with his rudder almost torn off in the ship heavily damage foster decides to run instead of surrender and let them come on board and make sure hes not transporting people. This tipped off his crew because the ship they thought they were carrying a huge load of lumber going to the caribbean, you know, yellow pine from alabama and theyd come back with a little rum or sugar. You know, it was a standard you have to think of these ships as 18wheelers of the 1800s. They were delivering goods delivering goods all over the place. So the crew figures out that the wood down is just a cover. Theres only a layer of wood under the wood are supplies for for keeping a hundred and plus people alive in the hold of the ship on the way back and they realize instantly they were on a slaving ship and so they mute me. Foster offer to double their pay and they said, okay well go so they fixed the ship they sail to africa. They went to wida, which is in modernday benite which is next to nigeria. And the reason they went to wida is because the mobile newspaper had an article in it saying weeda has reopened to the slave trade because wed have had signed a treaty with the english that they wouldnt do slave trading anymore and a new king came in and said, you know what were going back to the family business. So wida at the time was one of the top three slave ports in the world and and had been for hundreds of years, you know, we there the other slate ports very famous and everything, but we do was in that group and you know a a dutch slave trader from the 1600s wrote in the 1600s wrote. You could go to various ports around africa and get three or four people in a week. You could go to wida and have thousands in an hour. And that you know, so that tells you they hit industrialized the capture of people the capture of fellow africans to sell them. So in the mobile newspaper foster and mayor read weed is reopen people can be had for 60 ahead. So thats where they sail they get there. And of course the slaving squadron is a big deal, you know fosters worried about being captured and being hung. And the heats kind of on thered been a number of captures and everything. So he gets there. They anchor the boat. He gets taken a short and negotiate with a prince who is one of the you know, the king was king lele and so they they go there and foster is ready to negotiate the day he arrives and they dont let him talk to anybody related to the sale for eight days. So he thinks hes being set up for capture and he writes about this in his journal. Um, and hes thinking theyre gonna wait theyre gonna load my ship up with people. Theyre gonna take my 27 pounds of gold and theyre gonna set the the slaving squadron on me and ill be captured before i ever leave. This almost happens. But foster comes into an incredibly strange country and and we learn a lot about it from zorniel hurston who wrote barricoon about the experiences of cujo lewis. So simultaneously while foster is sailing across the atlantic the dahoman army is marching to capture people to have more people for sale. When the day homan army marched then you have to think of this country is about the size of georgia or alabama or pennsylvania. Um, and the dahoman kingdom was about the size of a big city in one of those states, atlanta, philadelphia. And so for three or four hundred years the people in atlanta or philadelphia captured millions, three or four Million People from the rest of an area the size of those states just to get that in your head as like, you know, this is a small small area and theyre killing everybody. So they go march out 50,000 people their army is 50,000 people strong and they in this case went to cujos village and attacked it. And he writes about how the attack happened and one of the one of the things he talks about are the female warriors. So anyone whos seen the black panther movie with the female warriors of wakanda. Thats based on the dahomaen army in benin what it actually was there was a a king who had a twin sister the king died. And his sister decided to take over and masquerade as the king. And so she assembled an allfemale guard around her. So no one would know. She was a woman. Well this guard of a hundred so people spread to 5,000 and subsequent. They were so protective and vicious subsequent mail kings who came after this imposter twin sister kept the female army intact, so there was this elite shock unit of 5,000 women warriors and so when they attack cujos village the men all waited outside the gates surrounding it was a fortified village, you know with a wall around it. They waited outside the women climbed ladders went into the village and attacked in the dead of night and cujo writes about these women running around cutting off peoples heads and cutting their jawbones off to keep his trophies taking their heads. Its incredibly brutally. Its its horrific to read and there are so many historical accounts talking about the exact same thing written by europeans british in particular naval officers and stuff. We we know this is what and so thats the world that foster ended up in. Um, thats what was going on in africa. You know you and i spoke earlier about what we were taught growing up what i was taught in atlanta, georgia Public Schools. Was that white men from america and europe went to africa with nets and went in the woods and through nets over people and caught. Well, thats kind of preposterous. The earliest stages of the slave trade in the 1400s, even there were europeans who went into north africa and and took people but by the time of the clotilde and by the time of all the people who were brought to america. Thats not the way this was playing out certain african kingdoms like the dahomans had decided. Okay, we can make a good living catching other people and selling it. And thats what was going on at this point. The dahomans had had industrialized the capture of fellow africans and and the deportation of them, you know people think of slavery as an african thing. It wasnt they caught people they sold people slavery was what happened when they got to the places. They were sent what happened in africa is they were stolen from their homes from their families and sent away from from everything they knew for the rest of their lives. One thing i was actually curious about is how they determine who was gonna be valuable because of course this is all contingent upon the white gaze of cell, you know, are you sellable . And are you valuable somewhere else, but how could that happen with the immediacy of violence and the dead of night and you know be heading how can you look at somebody and determine youre sellable that quick with, you know violence happening. Well, so you bring up to critical things that about what happened the first thing the only metric that the use during attacks was age if you were between 12 and 30 you were captured. If you were younger or older you were killed by the dahomans. That was how they operated so when they attacked a village they left no one behind no one alive was left in that village and it was purely this is the prime age for people to sell and were going to keep those people. So then when they had captured all these people and they marched them for days and days in in benin, they would take them first to a bombay that which was the capital of the home and empire. And they would be sorted and so if you had a skill you were a baker or an artisan you made jewelry you made you know, anything Specialized Skill the dahomans would likely keep you and enslave you themselves for the royal court. But if you were just a warrior, you know cujo had trained for five years. He was 19 when he was captured cujo lewis whos most people familiar with any aspect of the clotilda story know about it from cujo because he was interviewed by his or neal hurston and and in a really, you know, wonderful incredible historical work by her, you know, i cant give her enough credit for the way. She captured historic. But so if you had no skills that were marketable to the homes, then you were sold. So that was kind of the the break point first. It was age and then it was was there are you useful to us and people they didnt deem useful farmers just regular folks. They were the ones shipped across those. Oh, thank you. I think its important for us to think about the disposability of black people in this enterprise on all sides of the atlantic and within the global world. So its really cultures were lost. Thats the other aspect, you know a village you go in and you wipe out a community of 50,000 people or something. What is lost how many how many you know that that villages tails and and legends and and i mean, dont know what the human cost in africa never mind the cost across the oceans where the people were sent. I feel like its one of the hidden legacies of slavery that we we dont we barely have scratched the surface of understanding what that did to that continent and and to the global. Um, yeah, youre right because we privileged the narrative of those who were taken and transported into the americas and then we dont realize the cost of on those left behind and violence could ensue all the time. So the way to look at that, im sorry to interrupt but right now france is is returning the benin bronzes. To benin and nigeria. These are exquisite works of art metal work done in the 14 15 16 hundreds that when france took over and and colin they defeated the homans in 1892 and took a colonized benin. They took all this stuff and theyre giving it all back and its beautiful art. Its and just to the point of what has been lost. Yes, theres been a lot of losses and even more the loss of human life human life culture and its potential for evolution. That was common that was happening. So what next i sort of want to move to that struck me when were sort of thinking about what may look half hazard and random is how you have the closeness of ties of people that are landed of course through the process through the passage itself. We want to assume that that became solidified in the making an unmaking of inside people. The networld um, but as we think about their landing within alabama and within mobile, can you talk about that . Can you talk about sort of because now were extending this conversation of the secreted world. You know, how do you make available . What is really illegal . So yeah, well, you know, the clotilda gives us a really interesting window into American Culture and the Global Global cultures that came from africa. You know, weve all heard all the blues came from africa and etc, etc. The clotilde gives us that information in and unassailable form. It is so clear what came aboard the clotilde because when they arrived here um, they were documented by people in alabama in the 1860s by by enslaved people and by you know, the the masters owners all the doing all these things they came in singing songs of lament that were so sad and blood curdling they danced. They did all these things and they cooked and they were famous the africans that came in on the clotilder were famous for the stews and things they made theres a wonderful Netflix Netflix show called high on the hog, and i recommend it to everybody. The First Episode is about beneath and about what we have from benin. And one of the most potent things in that is the word for okra so okra and blackeyed peas come from benin the word for for okra in benin is gumbo. I mean that right there, isnt it . Just an incredibly powerful connection when you hear John Lee Hooker sing about im gonna get me a mojo hand. Thats benin benin is where voodoo came from the dahomans vote on they call it. Its the voodoo religion the way it got spread around the world was in people taken from benin by the dahomaens and sent to brazil and haiti and here so we see these connections here. We are in 1860. And and we have this verification that so many aspects of American Culture came straight out of africa and its really fast. I will say i found it very interesting to how it was almost a demonstration of theyre not from africa. So then you know when one was even asked where you from to then lie and say im from south carolina. So how that was already planted in the mind of black people already to disown your own experience even as soon as you get there. So that was definitely a whole other tactic that i sort of really didnt see i didnt see coming. So thats part of the clotilda story because they got captured so late in 1860. We know more about the people on the clotild then we know about any other enslaved people essentially. And because you know, they were interviewed multiple times in the 1800s simply because and they were the the journalists were treating mayor as a swashbuckling, you know, the last slave ship he was this hero and they were journalists were coming to see the africans to see the proof that he had done this and to see africans and their africanness. And so that you know, that was just this. I thought that was so powerful and then these people get interviewed up until the 1930s the clotildo captives, but and they were still you know in the public mind so we learned so much from them about the Middle Passage, which you have written extensively about and and the truth is, you know, the clotilda passengers nine of them were interviewed in 1909 by this woman emma roche and so we have their stories and so they make up a lot of what we have about Middle Passage life in africa what it was like to be in an african slaving rate as the victim what it was like to be in a barricoon. These are stories that came to us in the 1900s. Thats when they were documented because these people were captured so late, you know by the time of the civil war almost all of the enslaved people in the United States had been born in america. They were very few who had been brought from africa who were still alive and we were not yet listening to their stories at the time of the civil war. So the clotilda people give us this one last chance to hear the stories of people captured from africa and so they become kind of a proxy for all the enslaved people everyone whose ancestors arrived here in in the hold of a boat who cant know the stories of their ancestors because they werent recorded and they were, you know, essentially faceless people just forced the clotilde is their story and so people all over the country can read all over the world. The African Diaspora can read what happened to the clotilda people and get a feeling for what happened to their ancestors. And thats what makes it such a powerful powerful story. It does and i will say that it puts me even more in mind of amistad because of this american fascination with all these africans and of course, it seems like it plays out a little bit different. We dont have the circus sort of, you know being able to pay a ticket to come and see them but then yet there is this fascination with theyre from africa and then what would emerge after so lets um, i would like to talk about africa town. So we have this pretty civil war narrative, of course, theyre being imported during this time, but then the 1880s and the flourishing the seeing of so much more. Can you speak to that and then i want to get us a hundred years later to look at that. Irony. All right. Okay, so so something fascinating happened what youre talking about so that the africans get free five years after they get here. Well, these were not people born into american slavery like the rest of the slaves in the country the enslaved people in the country at the end of the civil war. These were people who five years before had been free. They had been craftsmen. They had been farmers. They had been merchants. They knew how to handle money. They were used to owning property. They were used to being free. And so theyre freed and they immediately you know that one of the interesting things with the clotilda story. Theyre brought here 110 people. And because it was illegal mayor brothers who did this. Spread them around amongst themselves only 30 of the 110 people were sold to a slave dealer who who only moved them about two hours away from mobile to sell. So they were all close together and because they were all working for the mayor brothers on their various plantations cujo for instance worked on a steamboat. He would visit regularly traveling up the river stopping in at the plants where all of the people he knew were enslaved many of the clotilda passengers were all from the same village bante where were cujo was from the others. Theyve been together in the barricoon for a month in the Middle Passage for six weeks, and then theyre here for weeks before they get split up. So these people at months to develop bonds and things so when the when the war ends and theyre all free. They all got back together the ones who were at places points north came to mobile and got together with the people here. And they decided okay, were gonna were gonna go home. Lets go back to africa. And so they started trying to figure out how much it cost and quickly realized. Oh, thats a lot of money. And so then they settle on the idea that cujo would ask timothy mayor to give them land. It reparations one of the first examples of reparations in the United States and it hes mayor said no, but thats where they were so they banded together. They went to work. They all got jobs the men would go work in different some worked in a gunpowder factory some work making shingles for the mayor some work in the shipyards lumberyards the women started farming in in benin in the culture there the women were the farmers and they would sell their wares at the market. So the women are farming theyre going to downtown mobile carrying baskets on their head. They were very famous around mobile for the african style of transport and they would sell vegetables and the men at night after they had worked their jobs. Theyre hard jobs would take reads from the river surrounding africa town and make baskets and sell those they raised up enough money. They began buying land. So they were buying land from their former enslavers. And they built houses. They took turns building each others houses. They built a school they built a church and cujo has this great line where he says we africans dont wait for the white people to give us a school. We build one for ourselves and thats that right there. They built one for themselves. They stuck together. They built things for themselves and they fought back they didnt take it when the oppressive, you know, jim crow reconstruction era machinery tried to squash them going on for decades. They fought back and so, you know, these are the critical things. So here we are in africa town. It is growing by the 1880s. Theyve got the school. They were very few schools in the south where African Americans could get educated. So people started flocking to africa town americanborn black people were coming to africa town because it was kind of becoming famous. It was being written about over and over in the media by 1912. Africa town was the fourth Largest Community in america governed by black people. Which is a stunning thing, you know booker t. Washington came, obviously his oriental hurston came Langston Hughes hughes came with wiz or it was a famous place and it was growing and prospering. And and thats you know, the its its a testament to the courage of the africans to the drive and tenacity that they came into this country and they you know, they realized okay. Were stuck here. Lets make a life and they did and its really an amazing story. It really is an amazing story and i was so it was it was dynamic for me to even also. See in with all this because again, we we lose sight of the leaders that are all connected in, you know, the maintenance of black culture all over and even more with education. Do you want to speak perhaps even more what book or two washington and rosenwald and sort of that and and you bring up rosenwald and most people probably dont know but he was the ceo of sears in in, you know, 1900 in chicago and Booker T Washington gave a speech there and talked about the need to educate the black youth at the time. And yeah, theyre coming out of slavery and he this was like a prostatitizing mission for him these people need education when the civil war ended, you know in in booker t. Washington famous book he writes. That he didnt know if freed African Americans were going to be ready to govern themselves. After the end of the civil war, how can they go from being enslaved to governing themselves the next day . Well here were the clotilda people and they they showed it. They the day that they were freed they decided to make a community and it was africa town and they decided to rule it according to the tribal customs back in africa. They appointed one of their number to be the chief. And then they pick some others to be judges and they lived by the dictates of their little Tribal Community and then the rest of them would you know . Kind of make sure everything was okay with the people theyd appointed to be leaders. So so you know that that then were getting to the school the african thing. So africatown schools kept getting burned down. Starting in the 1880s and im sure they were being burned down by you know whites in mobile who were upset about the prosperous nature of the africans who had open Grocery Stores. Cujos son had a grocery store, you know, they were there their businesses were thriving and prospering and white people were shopping at so the schools kept getting burned down and so at one point in the it was in the early 1900s. They applied to the rosenwald foundation. So after booker t spoken, chicago rosenwald saw him out and they agreed to create a foundation to build schools for africanamericans in the south. They they ended up building 5,000 schools. And theres only one left still teaching African American kids today, and its in africa town. All the more reason why the importance again in this longer history and history to africa town, so you made um a comment about that if could joe and others had lived through until the 40s and the 50s. They would have seen this tremendous growth that by the 70s its explosive and you know, its its very vibrant then we get the 1980s, so maybe we can speak to what was really generating this, you know, good explosion within it within the space of it that african town will become booming by the 1970s. Well two things happen first in about 1920. Um, they they built a road that ran along the gulf coast highway 98 and in mobile they decided to make the highway 98 crossing. They didnt wanted to come through downtown mobile in the 20s because mobile was thriving at all. So they decided well, lets pick somewhere nobody cares about and well put a bridge and a highway and that was right in the heart of africa. So they built a twolane drawbridge and then a twolane highway that went right through downtown africa town and it actually was a it brought a lot of prosperity to africa because people could come over the bridge and everyone going along the gulf coast had to go through africa town. They didnt go through mobile. So they were restaurants and actually there were you know, that that they they were not segregated at the time and so they they were they were africatown grew and grew and grew with this corridor for the road. And so there were there were barbershops and Grocery Stores and movie theaters and restaurants. Pharmacies everything you would want in a town and africa town grew around it in 1927. The mayors least some of their land to International Paper who made a paper mill. And at first it was a small concern and it but it provided a lot of jobs in the community from the 20s up into the 60s. Even further in the 70s by the seventies. This was the largest paper mill in the world. And so something sinister begins to happen, which is the pollution, you know, alabama, you have to understand at the time was pollution laws were nonexistent. It was all about making money and here weve got this classic environmental racism a gigantic paper mill in the heart of an africanamerican community. So what did they do . They put another paper mill next door to the biggest one in the world. And that was actually International Papers Global Headquarters for a long time and then they started bringing other factories. And so, you know africa town was built on land purchased from the mayors and some of the other plantation owners who had enslaved the africans. So africatown was actually in circles by property owned by their former and slavers who busily began bringing more and more businesses. And this began to have a devastating impact then we get into late 80s 90s the crack epidemic. And that sweeps through africa town now, you know, i interviewed people who talked about teachers at school being on crack, but great quote from his this wonderful guy lamar howard who says but mostly it was white people coming to africa town to buy crack. So theyre the ones took the loss on it. Um but you know thats devastating the community then we get to 1992. And they decide to replace the twolane drawbridge with a highrise six lane bridge. And a sixlane highway that follows the exact path of the old highway right through the heart of africa towns downtown commercial district. And right through all the properties purchased by the original african settlers, so that 92 bridge 1992. They destroyed all the last buildings built by the africans including cujo lewiss house. As well as his fellow captives, you know shipmates their houses. I in the book. I interviewed gary lumbers who grew up in cujos house because he was cujos great great grandson the family still occupied these properties and so the city of mobile and state of alabama as recently as 1992 took those properties by imminent domain and destroyed the heart of this community the only community in america started by africans and just they wiped it out and they wiped out the entire commercial district africa town went from a community of say 12,000 people to today there fewer than 2000. Its totally devastated and one other thing happened thats critical to mention. The mayor starting in 1880 had built a whole lot of shotgun houses in africa town 500. And in 1968 the grandson of Timothy Mayer. Announced that he was going to destroy them all and he just moved the families out and bulldozed all the houses and he did it in protest of the city of mobile giving water and Sewer Service to africa town, finally. Because the africa town africa town voted to join their two sid two communities as prichard a smaller town next to mobile and mobile both were vying for africa town to join their municipal zones for tax revenue. And so the prichard side offered water and sewer mobile bigger city offered water and sewer and were going to come pave your roads. So africa town in, you know, the 60s went from dirt roads and outhouses to having plumbing and paved roads. And so to punish african town for this. Apparently this augustine mayor the grand side of timothy mayor told a newspaper reporter. This is all well documented that he was tearing the houses down. Because the people probably wouldnt be able to pay for a water bill on top of the 4 a month rent. He charged them and he says they had all been fine without running water. They live perfectly happy and healthy you give them a bathtub. He wont know what to do what to do with it. Itll probably store food in it. I mean this literally these are direct quotes from timothy mayors grandson and so in africa town today, they wiped out they wiped out 500 houses you drive around africa town today and you hit these city blocks that are totally bare and you think why is this forest here in the middle of this community . All those chunks of forest. Those are old houses that the mayors destroyed in 1968 to punish the community for getting water. And so well, it sounds like the punishment was much more, you know, and then were thinking about imminent domain over blackness over life. Its evolution the other thing that i want to sort of that. Im grateful for that. I had read that you had in the book about the dissertation that came out in 1992 that same year that this massive hyatt highway would extend and so then to be able to have those those memories connected with those who were still thats natalie robertson. I want to get her name out there. She wrote another book about africa town and and she captured the last interviews with people who had grown up with the africans and and had known invaluable historical record what she did, you know, and she was a grad student and and you know, wow, what a powerful piece of scholarship. Yes by far um in just a moment. Were going to be moving to theres a ton of questions that are coming in, but i want to even sort of throw out. Um, what do you feel like the future can benefit from in you know within african town africa town and what youre doing with the with your book. What would you like to see in the future that you feel can help to really move the needle on healing and for population . So the one critical thing that has to happen is we dig up the ship we dig up the clotilda i have held. Pieces of the ship in my hands it is in good shape. It is sturdy. The wood is ready. We need to dig it up and put it on display in a museum in africa town and not you know right now the city the county mobile county. Bought our prefab metal build and put it in africa town and as as a sort of makeshift museum, its just been the building has just been built. Thats not what this story deserves. We are talking about an incredibly important global artifact. There are only 13 slave ships that have been found mostly in pieces not whole. Um at the Smithsonian Museum in washington dc they have a piece of a slave ship on display. Its about the size of a brick it came from a south african slave ship that sank in port in brazil had nothing to do with the american trade. The clotilde is the only ship that brought people from africa to america ever found and here it is and its intact. Its sitting in a river. Just a few miles north of africa. So the most important thing to do is dig that ship up put it on display in a worldclass museum in africa. We have a new museum in montgomery, alabama. Thats the Legacy Museum and its a National Monument for lynchings that happen. It brought a billion dollar Economic Impact to montgomery. So what i want to see in africa town is a National Monument to the enslaved and it is dedicated to the clotilda story. I talked about the clotilda story as a proxy for the stories of everyone who had been enslaved. Well, lets make a museum using their stories for what they are. This is the stories of everyone who arrived here in the whole of a boat and we have them. So lets tell them right now the smithsonian and the french government are building two museums in benin. 25 Million Dollars a piece dedicated to telling the story of slavery and biden. Well you know, here we have. The ship in africa town and we need to dig it up the state of alabama keeps refusing to say theyll dig it up. They keep talking about building a concrete pier at the site where i found the ship up river, that would be like a pearl harbor World War Two style. You know memorial thats fine. You can build that but the ship needs to be dug up and put on display in africa town. We have dug up. Multiple civil war era ships ironclads in mississippi, the hunley the First Submarine used in war during the civil war. It can be done and the clotilda is in fine shape. Its ready to be dug up the vasa a viking ship 1,000 years old was dug up out of the harbor and stockholm is on display. We can dig up the clotilde. Its just gonna take money and the will to do it and we cannot let alabama be so. Negligent that it doesnt do this. Alabama will not be able to afford it. Its going to cost 10 to 20 Million Dollars. Alabama cant do it state is perpetually broke because of its regressive tax system that that also harms anyway, the clotilde is going to have a lot of friends in this country. There are people listening right now who probably could pay 10 to 20 Million Dollars to dig it up if we need an act of congress to fund it we need to do it. This is an internationally important artifact and it needs to be on display in africa town when i was interviewing folks in the book. I mentioned this fellow lamar before he said to me when i went to memphis and i saw the Lorraine Motel where dr. King was called i cried. We was killed. Yeah. I cried. Weve got that same history here in mobile with the clotilda. You know that saying the ship the truth will set you free. Will the ship is the truth and thats what he said and he was absolutely right. And so we need to put that on display. You know we can send pieces to the smithsonian and and to bene to those museums or whatever, but there is no reason on earth that africa town should not have a museum housing the ship that brought the people who settled africa town on display in the community where their descendants still live today. Okay. Wow, so i want to jump to questions from our audience. We only have a few more minutes, but alright our first question which i think is right in line. Its important for us to think about the context of how alabamas responding. So this is a question is from bob h. Did you encounter any resistance to your investigation from locals who didnt want you digging into the past . Yes, the most prominent resistance was when i was told that. Joseph mayer who was one of the three greatgrandsons of timothy mayor a notorious racist. He died in march of 2020 and notorious racist when i wrote my first article about looking for the ship. I was told he wanted to cut me in half with a sword. Mmm. That was the threat that he had made and and three weeks before he died in march of 2020. Joe mayer was in one of the fanciest restaurants in mobile and very loudly. Told the maitre d who was sitting him at a table. I wont sit next to those any use of the worst pejorative. He could and very loudly in the restaurant and made a huge scene and insisted on being sat somewhere else away from some African American folks at a table. You know, thats who that guy is and and, alabama. So ive lost my train of thought because im so i get so fired up talking about. Oh, so i did lose some friends over this story who who had grown up with the mayors people. Id known for decades and they said youre ruining the mayors retirement. And i said, well, this is an american story the mayors need to come to the table everybody in africa town keeps asking them to come and meet with them. You know the people in africa town the descendants. They want to hear the mayor say hey, were sorry that our ancestors did this so that they can say its okay we forgive you and thats they want that reconciliation moment. And and thats whats being denied to them by the mayor family. So, you know to your point. Yes, i did to the question. I did feel some heat for doing this and you know, those are the kind of people. I like to thumb in the eye. Yeah anyway, and so, you know bring it on well, well, thank you for being the bulldog, you know that you know and moving this forward. So theres definitely a lot of thank you for your work more importantly. Thank you for putting africa town in the center of our minds and some are asking what do you think the future can hold with the museum and perhaps even beyond how again to think about the descendants and then to begin to almost repair begin to reinvest in africa town. Well, you know, i have a 25 year old son, and im a child of the south. I was born in alabama. I grew up in alabama, georgia and florida before moving to the northeast as a teenager my son talks about you know, hes gone to school here in alabama and he says all that racism stuff. Thats your generation. You know thats not part of my generation. Thats thats you and my grandparents. You guys are all hung up on that and you know, i was in Public Schools in in the mid 70s in georgia, you know part of the first group of you know School Busing and all that stuff. Thats not been his experience. So when i hear him say things like that, you know, and and i i okay the ball is moving whether i can perceive it or not, and we just need to keep doing that i think culture, you know. All races are so much more prominent in our cultural zeitgeist these days than they were when i was a kid, you know, america is no longer this place ruled by white people not not culturally and and so i i remain optimistic. I think we need to own the past and be ready for the future. Yeah, definitely. Struck at the very generational revel ation in thats you and your grandparents, but were not dealing with it because were not being taught it. So then at that point were not just thinking about is there a folklore is that real but then its like were not taught it so why is it a big deal . So how did it maybe as an outro even though this is probably a big one. How do we begin to put clothes hilda make it important as the push back is there on race and its integration in even the even the American Education system. Well, the first thing i would say is this whole argument about Critical Race Theory . Yes. No, its history. This is the history of america people can shy away from it and hide because they think it makes them look bad or the way they feel today. Hmm. They know is not. Okay. I think thats more what thats about. Yeah, but this is the history of our nation and we have never gotten anywhere by hiding from it or ignoring it. We need to deal with it and move forward and thats thats what we can do and and you know we have a chance to do that and we should be inspired by whats going on in benin. Yeah, i was stunned when i went to benin to discover. Theyre having talks there about reparations and reconciliation related to the slavery era and when you look at what happened in benin, its actually a much more intense connection everybody on the clotilde everybody involved with the people on the clotilda everyone who captured them and all the people on that ship all came from benin as i mentioned a country the size of pennsylvania or georgia or alabama and so today. The descendants of those people are all still there. Everyone in benin was either in a tribe that was capturing people or a tribe that was being captured and its led to this situation. Now where the the dahomans who were the capturing tribe are still the dominant ethnic group. They control all the wheels of government. But all the other tribes they captured are collectively more people and their grumbling and so the the government in benin is worried about a rwanda style tribal genocide emerging and so theyre actively working to shut it down and theyre not shutting it down by keeping it quiet. Theyre shutting it down by talking about it. There are statues all over beneath when you ride around that country. You must be riding along the highway and theres a statue of a man on his knees bound and gagged and handcuffed from behind and that statue is there to make you ashamed for your familys role in slavery and you see him all over the country. Its a really interesting moment there and they talked about, you know, i met with government officials i met with people on all sides and there are villages there where the descendants of the other tribes that were captured wont shop in stores owned by the font the dahomans they wont and theyre kids to school with them. And so theyre actively trying to to have a reconciliation about that. You know the first time most americans heard anything about these ideas of reconciliation was when the president of beneath came to a church in baltimore in the early 2000s and said in the church, he said i want to apologize for my country. We did this we sold you we sold our brothers and sisters from africa, you know, we sold them to the white people and and it was taking ownership of that and it was a healing moment, you know in all kinds of ways and thats the direction for this stuff happened and we can move forward. We can keep trying to tamp it down and keep it under the rug and not move forward. But you know, lets put the ship on display and move forward. Lets do that because the ghosts are lingering they want to be remembered and it is time to go. So it has been such an honor. Thank you so much. I want to thank everyone for being here. This is really been incredible and let this be the beginning not the end but the beginning of so much more also in our remembrance. So now when i turn it over to mars see if it again, this has been incredible. Thank you so much, man. Thank you for being such a great host. This is great you and i just want to thank you both for your work ben. This is this heres the book. I have it. Its wonderful. So i want to thank you for your scholarship and your work. Its also important. Thank you again. Both of you. It was a fascinating amazing conversation and our flew by everyone. Thank it is four oclock and i am going to call this session of the washington history seminar to order. I want to welcome everyone