by Nick Tabor
Overall: This excellent, compulsively readable work of non-fiction tells the story of the community in Alabama that grew up following the voyage of the Clothilde, which is believed to be the last ship to transport enslaved people from Africa to the United States. Africatown makes a convincing case for how systemic racism, beginning during the 19th century when the community of Plateau (as the community was originally called) was founded in the wake of the Civil War, continues to the present through the economic and environmental challenges seen in the Africatown neighborhood today. Through deep research into primary and secondary sources, some of which have only recently been uncovered (like the remains of the ship itself), the book raises important questions about how we tell stories about our past, who gets to decide what’s preserved, and why.
Likes: The book does an wonderful job of situating the personal histories of many of the people within the broader contexts of local Mobile history, Alabama history, Southern history, and American history. The personalities of those involved in the story over the decades, including Cudjo, a freedman born in Africa, the celebrated author Zora Neale Hurston and her eccentric patron, Henry Williams, the resident of Plateau most determined to have its history recognized as “Africatown, USA,” and properly preserved, and many more, jump off the page. Where possible, the book prioritizes primary sources and the voices of community members over secondary sources, and the author carefully unpacks possible bias on the part of earlier historians, reporters, and writers from outside the community.
Dislikes: really none.
FYI: descriptions of the Middle Passage, kidnapping, slavery, violence, lynching, racial terrorism, racism.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for my advance copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
Liz Helfrich 