The History of Africatown

In this video you will learn about the story of how Africatown, which is a small community located within Mobile, Alabama, was created. The community was home to the survivors of the last known illegal slave ship, which was called the Clotilda. Find out more about Africatown and its rich history throughout this video narrated by Anderson Flen. Website: africatown.000webhostapp.com/...

[@phylliscoleman2128]

Thank you for this history lesson. I'm from Plateau, Al (Africatown). Daughter of Nathaniel and Sarah Russell. Green St.

[@robinwashington9606]

This is my hometown. All of my family is from here. In the documentary I could see so many memories of my family 😢. I'm happy to know my history.

[@DrLesiaThePreachasDiviNation]

Im Cudjoe Lewis’ great granddaughter

[@DrLesiaThePreachasDiviNation]

248.821.8964

[@DrLesiaThePreachasDiviNation]

I believe that both Redoshi & Cudjoe Lewis are my great grandparents, even though they were married to others, at different points.

[@monicadriver3585]

@@DrLesiaThePreachasDiviNation I am applying to attend a NEH workshop to learn more about Clotilda and the descendants of the last 110 Africans to be brought to the US.

[@gatheringleaves]

No you're not

[@aminifusadifu3789]

We have family history that spoke also of man from Mobile name Cudjoe , who was from Africa.He would tell futuristic stories of "freeways" and "skyways" back before they existed in Mobile in the 1920s.

[@name_me_king73]

I'm from Montgomery and I visit Mobile 3-4 times a year - I'm pulling up in Africatown/Plateau next time. I have to absorb the vibe, the energy, the connection to MY roots is a must 🌳🌍

[@cambizkhosravi]

I’m reading Imani Perry’s amazing book, “South to America”, and this is the first time I have heard about your Community and the history behind it. Stories of enslaved survival need to be taught to us all.

[@joseyeastwood]

i lived in Plateau Africa Town for a year and i didn't even know the history i lived on Cherry Street about two blocks from the Mobile County School that is so sad what our ancestors had to suffer through Rest in Peace to them all.

[@robinwashington9606]

I didn't know myself until long after.

[@hazelbotedapgonzalez6172]

This is fascinating and heart breaking. It’s an injustice that most of the school systems in this country have glossed over these travesties in our history lessons. I look back and can’t even believe that they had us having assemblies putting on shows for how great Christopher Columbus was. I always remember thinking as a child if he discovered America, but the native Americans were already here, how does that make any sense? But as a child, you don’t really press it. As an adult, it’s infuriating that these teachers made that happen. Great video.

[@pamelaowens3826]

WoW I am so happy this came to History I never knew bout this wasn't taught in our History class, I just seen it on Netflix I started watching it W0W right in Alabama,Thank God for this story being told it was hidden from our History.

[@msnae7861]

Here in America my paternal Grandmother was a freed slave. It's really a caring episode to see how I could have been created. Because, I am related to many of the ppl from the shipwreck.

[@kalifornia9295]

One of my grandfathers was freed when he was 7. The history is so intricate and there’s so many untold stories from that time that need to be talked about more now!!❤

[@ShaneM420]

So start talking. All we have to do is open our mouths. This is how Black history gets lost and distorted; we've lost the knowledge of our oral tradition as Black People. We no longer have or even know the native tongue of our indigenous African languages but we do know how to speak english. We need to tell the stories of our Ancestors EVERY DAY to Black children, even if they're not our biological children, and to anybody we'll MAKE listen.

[@vigorousuploading3478]

No wonder hurricanes skips over Mobile. We are the ones

[@adamlangdon2245]

This was an amazing story. This narrator should have his own show.

[@jamo1311]

Wow, what a great and sad story. I grew up in the Prichard/Saraland area and never knew this. I knew we had an Africa Town Bridge, but that is all I knew. I will be researching more to inform some students about the untold stories of Mobile, Al. Thank You

[@slimcoco5756]

Thanks for this lesson. I wasn't aware of this. (Love from South Carolina Sept. 26, 2020)❣

[@segoayah]

A great people with a great story on life and love. May The Most High continue to bless your families and to be a light that shines on our forefathers who made us all what we are today, blessed. And that we shall be heald and come out with great substance.

[@raptorleafMedication]

The reason this is so confusing to most people is because not all skin folk is kinfolk. Weve been lied to about every single aspect of our history and I refuse to lay blame solely at the feet of white people. There is no such thing as an African American. Some of us have American Indian ancestry and some of us have hidden European ancestry. If you can't trace your African ancestry within the last 100 years, chances are IT DOESN'T EXIST!!! I can't stress this fact enough. Many of the gatekeepers to this information look just like us and are PURPOSEFULLY misleading us for whatever reason. Just know though, a massive hidden piece of history is that some of the very first pilgrims to make contact with our ancestors looked just like us. They were black Europeans aka Huguenots. For example, go Google the founder of Chicago. There's so much about our past that we're not aware of and unfortunately it's allowed a whole race of people to step in and assume our identity.

[@user-js1wb7vy7e]

Here already. Melanated people are ab0riginal to all lands. We covered the globe before all other people came in existence through recessive genetics

[@godglc]

They know....they kept records....

[@lovelycaradine1814]

My great grandma and grandmother and great great aunt attended this church their home going services was there also

[@gatheringleaves]

My great great grandfather Thomas Henry was a Yoruba man who immigrated willingly to the Caribbean in the 1840s from Sierra Leone. It's interesting to know that at the same time enslaved Africans were still being brought to the United States, even if illegally, they had already abolished both the slave trade and slavery in the West Indies and there were Yoruba people coming at the same exact time as free immigrants.

[@testfourbeatsource7855]

The whole Narrative doesn't add up.

[@jailamom]

I highly doubt any blk person back in the 1800 to early 1900s willing traveled anywhere. They were mostly sold as slave, a blk body was money.

[@kollegs101]

A Yoruba Thomas Henry bro? Are you sure you are being told the truth?

[@grandavelwizbeybey5401]

🤐

[@MC32595]

⁠@@kollegs101 that’s probably a given name, not his birth name. it was common behavior among the slavers to erase and rename.

[@catherinenolga9454]

Great discover for me, I don't knew the story of Clotilda.. Greetings from France

[@syckindahead]

I heard they're considering making a museum to commemorate the finding of the Clotilda and the significance of the creation of Africatown.

[@fredrickcooper6277]

I never new this happened

[@larissastuckey6214]

They did.

[@strikedubfirst863]

It just open today🎉

[@motophone8794]

​@@strikedubfirst863have they pulled it out of the waters now??

[@pecanbrown9163]

My grandfather and my dad's people are from there... We have heir property there... I want to know more... my dad and his sister and brothers grew up there... I was back and forth over there... I must know more about my family history.... It's now called plateau....

[@investingoutdabluu2210]

Yo bro you really have to do this again with a 🎤

[@lonew2657]

Thank you , the woman king brought me here.

[@godglc]

Their slave importation was suppose to been stopped...

[@Janeenadavis]

I would love to be able to speak with you. Matilda McCrear and Redoshi lived in communities along with my relatives.

[@pecanbrown9163]

I have relatives with your last name 🤯 who used to live there

[@williamspear7803]

This is amazing you mean to tell me as many times I been to Mobile AL i never heard of Africa town tis is a must see on my soon-to-be trip there . these were the last slaves and from the looks the build the own little town from wat the lady says out of much of nothing black people this is sacred lands this is we're the last people from the mother lands made there mark and we as black Americans honor this land bring it back to life .

[@chriskilpatrick4793]

Close to prichard al

[@artbolar885]

My fam from mobile I never knew this

[@williamspear7803]

@@artbolar885 yes we jus a people here existing in a strange land were we been for 400year and still lost

[@michellem2042]

💙💙💙

[@adventuresblissconnection4198]

Thank you

[@bigrich6750]

Last year I went on a tour of the Mobile/Tensaw Rivers and saw the spot where Cotilda was beached and the slaves were released.

[@aaliyahyisrael7461]

❣️❤️❣️

[@KingSlat730]

Hey if anyone knows what classes in my college i should enroll in, in order for me to learn things like This. Let me know.

[@leenicholson6919]

Excellent and interesting report. I had no idea that the slaves lived through the voyage and burning of the ship until watching this. I had assumed that burning the ship had killed everyone. You talk about the separation of families, but it sounds like they were semi-free persons here. Were they free from the beginning or were some slaves here in the US -- or indentured who could buy their freedom?

[@stephencarr4238]

The slaves on the ship were released in the swamp before the ship was burned and went through slavery for 5 years until they became free. They returned to this area and end up buying land from the meayher family and flourished because hog bayou was just an amazing place to fish and hunt back then. I was born near the area and the man across the street from me told me lots of stories about africatown and it was an honor to listen to him, but yet sad because of the racism that tried to destroy what those families created.

[@leenicholson6919]

@@stephencarr4238 Thank you. I appreciate the response!

[@motophone8794]

​@@stephencarr4238the swamp? With gators?

[@abbytaylor8734]

Is it safe? I've read several articles saying you should leave before dark. Im planning to go tomorrow but there's nothing really to go to.

[@TidePrideMan]

The entire continent of Africa has had centuries of famine and starvation. If this happened at the end of slavery is it safe to say that the Captain of the Clotilda actually helped save the slaves and they quickly became free humans?

[@grandavelwizbeybey5401]

All the people look like my grandparents 😅

[@jackgross6133]

Horrible, to be seperated from all of yourfamily,..stolen away,...think about that fellow white americans,.. think about it in your own family instance,...i mean it,.......i am crippled emotionally at the thoughts and feels of it,...

[@malcomshaw5962]

💜⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🎬

[@deniserobinson9874]

Go, watch the documentary, the journey of a Man genetic Odyssey, it tells the true story of everyone’s history.

[@heyo3846]

Oh I thought this was africville in Nova Scotia ! 😮

[@ShaneM420]

There's Black People in nova scotia?

[@heyo3846]

@@ShaneM420 seriously?? Lol 😂

[@heyo3846]

@@ShaneM420 look Nova Scotia up lol you'd learn alot! Lots of history... I also lived in Germany, and guess what? Black people there too!!! Lmao 🤣

[@heyo3846]

@@ShaneM420 there's even settlements in pei and Newfoundland !!!!! Out west of Canada, not so much.

[@ShaneM420]

@@heyo3846 thanks. Sometimes it's hard to fathom there are African-descended people all over the globe. Even though I know that's a fact.

[@testfourbeatsource7855]

So has any one from the area looked into Dane Callaway?

[@Duro_Cubano]

Why should they? He’s an ahistorical charlatan that completely fabricates history, no scholastic institution will take him or his “information” seriously.

[@grandavelwizbeybey5401]

🤔

[@ShaneM420]

Why would they do that?

[@noahstringer]

its sickening that the maher family kept, and still have, the only private property for MILES, within feet from where the ships remains were found. no one can convince me that family was unaware there was a sunken ship feet away from their river cabin. That family has more land in the area than you would ever imagine. Chippewa Lakes LLC. The damn state park on causeway is named after that family, its disgusting

[@lisalovely7259]

there was no slave ships They were only small sailboats at the time. There was never millions and millions of slaves. They would not have survived the voyage, so history is wrong. The indigenous people yes, meaning black the indigenous people was already in the Americas. Please people get a grip on yourself. Go in Google. The story about Alex Haley, that's a lie too. The movie roots a big live in in the world of information. I suggest that you use it. We are the indians