Africatown/Plateau — Bunk History

John H. Smith (left), mayor of Prichard, Alabama, unsuccessfully campaigned for the creation of an Africatown national park.

The Forgotten 1980s Battle to Preserve Africatown

A new book tells the definitive history of an Alabama community founded by survivors of the slave trade.

by Nick Tabor via Smithsonian on February 20, 2023

Image from the documentary "Descendant" showing a man standing on a beach looking over the water.

Reckoning with the Slave Ship Clotilda

A new documentary tells the story of the last known slave ship to enter the United States and takes on the difficult question of how to memorialize America’s history of racial violence.

by Vera Carothers via The New Yorker on September 21, 2022

The 'Clotilda,' the Last Known Slave Ship to Arrive in the U.S., Is Found

The discovery carries intense, personal meaning for an Alabama community of descendants of the ship's survivors.

by Allison Keyes via Smithsonian on May 22, 2019

A drawing of a scuba diver holding a flare, exploring the wreck of a slave ship underwater.

Dredging Up the Ghostly Secrets of Slave Ships

A global network of maritime archeologists is excavating slave shipwrecks—and reconnecting Black communities to the deep.

by Julian Lucas via The New Yorker on February 24, 2025

Lonesome for Our Home

Zora Neale Hurston’s long-lost oral history with one of the last survivors of the Atlantic slave trade.

by Elias Rodriques via The Nation on May 23, 2018

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