Abaché and Cudjoe Kazoola Lewis at Africatown in the 1910s.
Mr. Lewis, who came to America aboard the Clotilde, is believed to be the last person born on African soil to have been enslaved in the United States.
Source: Emma Langdon Roche, Historic Sketches of the South (New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1914)
Vessel License for the Schooner Clotilde, 1855
The Clotilde, commanded by Captain William Foster, landed in Mobile, Alabama in 1859 carrying between 110 and 160 West African captives. To evade federal authorities waiting at the port, Foster docked at night and transferred the human cargo to a waiting riverboat. Afterward, the captain had the ship burned and sunk. The enslaved Africans were sold to the owner of a nearby plantation.
The Clotilde was the last known ship to illegally bring slaves to America. Descendants of these Africans still live in the area around Mobile known as Africatown.
Image: The National Archives, Southeast Region; records of the U.S. Customs Services, Collector of Customs, Mobile, Alabama
When my mother graduated from Talladega College (Talladega, Alabama) in 1959, her baccalaureate speaker was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He’s pictured with Talladega’s president, Dr. Arthur D. Gray (r.), and Dean of Student Affairs, Dr. Cohen T. Simpson. Dr. Gray was the college’s first black president.
Talladega’s commencement speaker that spring was Shirley Chisholm.
Photo courtesy Talladega College (via family collection)
![Children and teacher in classroom studying corn and cotton, Annie Davis School, near Tuskegee, Alabama
Frances Benjamin Johnston, photographer
ca. 1902
Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection [Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Alabama], Library of Congress](http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3b20000/3b25000/3b25500/3b25575r.jpg)
Children and teacher in classroom studying corn and cotton, Annie Davis School, near Tuskegee, Alabama
Frances Benjamin Johnston, photographer
ca. 1902
Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection [Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Alabama], Library of Congress
The Selma-to-Montgomery March for voting rights, Alabama, March 1965
Peter Pettus, photographer
Formed part of the “Voices of Civil Rights” exhibit, Library of Congress
(Source: loc.gov)
When we reached the crest of the bridge, I stopped dead still. …
“There, facing us at the bottom of the other side, stood a sea of blue-helmeted, blue-uniformed Alabama state troopers, line after line of them, dozens of battle-ready lawmen stretched from one side of U.S. Highway 80 to the other.
“Behind them were several dozen more armed men—Sheriff Clark’s posse—some on horseback, all wearing khaki clothing, many carrying clubs the size of baseball bats.
“On one side of the road I could see a crowd of about a hundred whites, laughing and hollering, waving Confederate flags. Beyond them, at a safe distance, stood a small, silent group of black people.
"— John Lewis, with Michael D’Orso, Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1998, pg. 338-9. (via lbjlibrary)
George Washington Carver, full-length portrait, seated on steps, facing front, with fellow faculty members at Tuskegee Institute, ca. 1902
Frances Benjamin Johnston, photographer
Booker T. Washington Collection, Library of Congress
(Source: loc.gov)
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama
During the Civil Rights Movement the historic African American church served as an organizational headquarters. On Sunday, September 15, 1963 members of the Ku Klux Klan planted 19 sticks of dynamite outside the church basement. The explosion killed 4 young girls and injured 22 others.
These are the images and accounts of how people worked, raised families, built communities, worshiped, maintained relationships, expressed themselves and coped with changes and challenges in the past. Most of the subjects are Americans of African descent.
"Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go." — James Baldwin
