On Friday, October 20, 2023, CPCRS hosted What Remains: Preserving the Heritage of Africatown, a daylong public symposium at the Penn Museum, Widener Hall, 3260 South St, Philadelphia. The symposium was also streamed live and a recording was made available for the public after the event. Admission was free and open to the public.

The day was filled with thought provoking and heartwarming dialogues, ranging from perspectives from researchers who work to bring the story of Africatown, its founders and residents, and its diasporic connections to life; Africatown descendants and activists fighting to elevate and protect their home; to designers re-imagining the potential future of the town. We are humbled to have been able to host a wonderful group of panelists and moderators and engaged audience members for this rich day-long event.

Please see below for an archival record of the Fall 2023 Symposium. 

Overview

This interdisciplinary symposium will bring together scholars, activists, and designers dedicated to amplifying the history of Africatown, Alabama through ensuring community-led processes for racial, environmental, and economic justice. Africatown, also known as Plateau, is a community north of downtown Mobile that was founded in 1866 by formerly enslaved West Africans who were brought to Alabama in 1860 on the Clotilda, the last documented slave ship to arrive to the United States. The journey and the life of one of those founders, Cudjo (Kossula) Lewis is the subject matter of Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo.”

The discovery of the Clotilda remains in 2018 and the recent release of the Netflix documentary Descendant has led to increased media attention and economic opportunity for local heritage tourism, yet questions persist about who is to benefit and how descendants can maintain authority and autonomy over these developments. The symposium aims to focus attention on the growth and continuous encroachment of heavy industry, including paper mills and chemical refineries, around Africatown that have created public health crises for the descendant community.

Featuring three panels that will focus on storytelling, activism, and design, this convening seeks to answer questions related to memory work and environmental and spatial justice, including:

• In what ways can our knowledge of the past help inform our vision for the future?
   
• How do we amplify the diasporic links between West Africa and modern-day Africa Town USA?
   
• How can descendant communities shape policy decisions around reparations?
   
• What role does historic preservation have in design, especially when much of the physical fabric of what we wish to honor and celebrate has vanished or been purposefully erased?
   

Confirmed panelists:

• Ann Cuss, World Monuments Fund Regional Director of North America


• Kwesi Daniels, Department Head and Associate Professor of Architecture, The Robert R. Taylor School of Architecture and Construction Science, Tuskegee University


• Joycelyn Davis, Organizer, Spirit of our Ancestors Festival; Member, Clotilda Descendants Association


• Sylviane Diouf, Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University, and Lloyd International Honors College, University of North Carolina Greensboro


• Mario Gooden, Professor of Professional Practice and Director of the Master of Architecture Program, Columbia GSAPP; Principal, Mario Gooden Studio: Architecture + Design


• Jerome Haferd, Architect, public artist, activist, educator, and co-founder, BRANDT : HAFERD; winning team, Africatown International Idea Competition


• Renee Kemp-Rotan, Urban designer, planner, and CEO; studio| rotan; Co-organizer, Africatown International Design Idea Competition


• Matt Kenyatta, Director of Justice and Belonging (JxB), Stuart Weitzman School of Design


• Rashida Ng, Presidential Associate Professor of Architecture and Chair, Undergraduate Architecture, Stuart Weitzman School of Design


• Deborah Plant, African American and Africana Studies independent scholar, writer, and literary critic; Editor, Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo”


• ​​Veda Robbins, Descendant and Community Organizer; The BIG We


• Nick Tabor, Freelance journalist (New York Times, Washington Post, and others);  Author, Africatown: America’s Last Slave Ship and the Community It Created


• Joe Womack, President, Clean, Healthy Educated, Safe & Sustainable Community, Inc.; Co-founder, Africatown Heritage Preservation Foundation

What Remains: Preserving the Heritage of Africatown is co-sponsored by the Department of Historic Preservation at Weitzman and the Center for Africana Studies at Penn.

Image Citations

“Cudjo Lewis,” Mobile Public Library Digital Collections, accessed August 18, 2023, https://digital.mobilepubliclibrary.org/items/show/1825.

National Register of Historic Places Nomination: Africatown Historic District, Mobile County, Alabama (2012), United States Department of the Interior: National Park Service, accessed August 18, 2023, https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/773d69c8-2dfc-4c65-b33d-c7a0050d9015.