The Enduring Legacy of Africatown and the Africa Town Bridge

Nov 06, 2025 0

Africatown, also known as AfricaTown USA and Plateau, stands as a testament to the resilience and determination of a group of West Africans who, despite being illegally brought to the United States as slaves, forged a vibrant and self-sustaining community. Located just three miles north of downtown Mobile, Alabama, Africatown's history is intertwined with the infamous Clotilda slave ship and the ongoing struggle for environmental justice and preservation.

One of the historic markers that tells the story of Africatown.

The Clotilda and the Founding of Africatown

In 1860, Timothy Meaher, an Alabama businessman, defied the ban on importing enslaved Africans by smuggling over 100 people on the Clotilda. These individuals, primarily from the Yoruba, Ewe, and Fon ethnic groups, were captives of war from the Kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin). After arriving in Mobile Bay, the Clotilda was burned to conceal the illegal activity, and the Africans were distributed among the investors of the venture.

Following the Civil War and their emancipation, these Africans, unable to return to their homeland, pooled their resources and purchased land from the Meaher family. This marked the beginning of Africatown, a community where they could preserve their West African customs and language, while also adapting to their new surroundings. The community they founded grew into the present-day Africatown, a small but vibrant community north of Mobile, AL.

Africatown, Alabama

Among the founders of Africatown was Cudjoe Kazoola Lewis (whose Yoruba name was Kazoola or Kossola). He was said to be the oldest slave on the Clotilda and a chief. Accounts also refer to Charlie Poteet as a chief. Their medicine man was named Jabez, or Jaba. Charles Lewis (Oluale was his Yoruba name) and his future wife Maggie were also among the Africans on the Clotilda. Cudjoe Lewis lived until 1935 and until 2019 was thought to be the last survivor of the original group.

Zora Neale Hurston’s recently published Barracoon tells the story of Cudjoe, the last living captive of the Clotilda and a key leader in Africatown. As Cudjoe is quoted in Barracoon, “Cudjoe tell de people what Cap’t Tim say. Dey say, “Well, we buy ourself a piece of lan’. We workee hard and eat molasses and bread and buy de lan’ from de Meaher.”

Four families raised enough money to purchase seven acres of land, which grew into the flourishing community now known as Africatown.The enslaved Africans that were smuggled into Alabama came from different ethnic groups and combined traditions and customs in their community. Detail view of the Cudjoe Lewis Marker at Africatown.

Africatown bloomed into a community that preserved its African cultural traditions well into the 1950s, creating a community school, church, and cemetery.

The enslaved Africans that were smuggled into Alabama came from different ethnic groups and combined traditions and customs in their community.

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Detail view of the Cudjoe Lewis Marker at Africatown.

Africatown bloomed into a community that preserved its African cultural traditions well into the 1950s, creating a community school, church, and cemetery.

Challenges and Environmental Injustice

While Africatown grew as a self-sustaining community, it was not completely exempt from the impact of the outside world. Environmental impacts from the legacy of paper mills were prevalent in the community, a place that not only provided income for residents but affected much of the fresh water supply and wildlife, so much so that the residents sued for damages in 1997. The paper mills also created a health crisis, with many of the residents of Africatown dying from cancer caused by chemicals released by International Paper and Scott Paper Co. mills and plants.

The landing site of The Clotilda slave ship is now covered by oil storage tanks that emit toxic air pollution into the community. Three of the five largest industrial polluters in Mobile County are located on the waterfront of Africatown. A local research institute found 300 to 3,000 times the levels of chemicals in the soil declared to be safe by the World Health Organization, and residents sued a paper mill company for contaminating their environment.

As industry grew in the area, the population of Africatown shrank from approximately 12,000 in the 1960s to fewer than 2,000 today.

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In their efforts to fight back, Africatown residents formed an environmental justice organization called CHESS (which stands for Clean, Healthy, Educated, Safe and Sustainable), led by Major Joe Womack, who has partnered with Texas Southern University and the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice to fight for better environmental health conditions in the area. Their work focuses on establishing a Safe Zone for Africatown to reduce pollution and prevent industrial expansion into the community. Such a safe zone is vital for residents to sustain their community for future generations.

The Cochrane-Africatown USA Bridge

The creation of urban renewal projects impacted the community as well, separating the community via the construction of the Africatown Bridge in 1991. The construction of the Bay Bridge Road has split the community’s church and cemetery, dividing the two entities from one another.

A view of the Cochran-Africatown Bridge in Mobile, Alabama.

The Cochrane-Africatown USA Bridge was completed and opened in 1991. It was named in honor of the 60-year-old vertical-lift Cochrane Bridge (in turn named for president of the Mobile, Alabama Chamber of Commerce at the time, John T. Cochrane Sr.) that it replaced, and the historic community of Africatown, which was located where the western approach to the bridge was built. In 1997 community activists promoted preservation and designation of the Africatown Historic District to encourage development there. This was the first, and is still the only, cable-stayed bridge in the state of Alabama.

Threat of Increased Truck Traffic

Africatown residents were recently confronted with more challenges. In early June, the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) of Mobile and Baldwin County announced a plan to revive a previous bridge project that had been declared dead in 2019. In the new plan, a bridge would be built for trucks over 46 feet in length, which would not be permitted to use, as they currently do, the Wallace Tunnel to cross Mobile Bay between Mobile County and Baldwin County. Transportation studies conducted for each of the MPOs conclude that truckers would avoid the toll by traveling on the only alternate route, which is through Africatown and connects to the Cochrane-Africatown USA bridge.

These studies do not address the significant negative impacts that the diverted truck traffic would have on Africatown residents. This project would mean more air pollution for Africatown residents and visitors, on top of all the other sources of industrial pollution which disproportionately burdens the community. Many studies show that breathing diesel exhaust leads to premature death and increased hospitalization from chronic cardiac and pulmonary diseases, including asthma and decreased lung function in children. Studies in California estimated that 70% of total known cancer risk from air pollutants is attributable to diesel particulate matter.

Diesel-powered trucks are a major source of extremely toxic emissions made up of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and volatile organic compounds. PM2.5 is a mix of miniscule solid and liquid particles that is very harmful for human health. On the safety front, rerouted truck traffic increases the risk of serious collisions with large rigs, and threatens the safety of residents and tourists, not to mention the fact that the Africatown bridge is an evacuation route. African Americans are struck and killed by drivers at a rate 82 percent higher than white and non-Hispanic people. Furthermore, increased truck traffic would hurt Africatown’s opportunity to build a local economy based on its unique role in American history, which is gaining significant attention.

PM2.5 exposure is 12% higher for African Americans and 7% lower for whites. No studies to date relating to the proposed bridge have included an evaluation of air pollution from the exhausts of the diverted truck traffic.

Preservation Efforts and Community Resilience

Today, Africatown is a historic site and ongoing preservation project, saving the legacies of the 32 enslaved Africans who laid the foundation of the community and connecting its descendants. Protecting Genealogical RecordsAlongside the work to preserve and care for the physical site of Africatown, AHPF also seeks to preserve the existing genealogical connections to Africatown.

While Africatown has been primarily populated by those with connections to the Clotilda, many people have moved out of Mobile and have not come back to stay, according to Flen. One of the tenets of AHPF is to support descendants in this particular aspect of their ancestor research to hopefully create a more complete picture of the lives of those on the Clotilda.

In regards to the research, Flen says that there is a major gap that, while individuals are doing their own work to locate their connection to Africatown, the international question of who exactly was on the Clotilda is still a challenge. "A lot of work has not been done on identifying the individuals on those ships, but [researchers] have the names," says Flen.

Remembering AfricatownWhile Flen no longer lives in Mobile, he regularly visits and knows the history intimately. This comes from not only through the work he does at AHPF, but also from his love of Africatown’s history and community. He says his desire to remember is what fuels his love for this work.

Communities come to preservation projects for many reasons. The main motivator for Africatown is the spirit of the original 32 enslaved Africans, who seeded the legacy that would become Africatown today, and who seek to have their story told. One of the spaces where that spirit lives is the cemetery of the Union Baptist Missionary Church, where the communities’ founders are buried.

“When I go to Mobile, one of the first places I go is the cemetery. I go there because I remember,” Flen reflects as he speaks about the importance of honoring the spirit of Africatown. that continues into the present day. Despite best efforts to exterminate sites of Black resistance like Africatown, a community-led desire to tell the true story remains.

Africatown Cemetery

Flen recalls a story of the lantern walk, where each graduating student from the community’s technical school would take a lantern around the school grounds followed by a pilgrimage to the cemetery in order to give thanks to those who came to Mobile on the Clotilda.

The preservation of Africatown is serving as its own lantern walk, where members of the community are bringing light to the land’s history and giving thanks to those enslaved people who resisted and made it all possible.

In 2009, the neighborhood was designated as a site on Mobile's African American Heritage Trail. The Africatown Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. Its related Old Plateau Cemetery, also known as Africatown Graveyard, was founded in 1876.

In 2010, Neil Norman of the College of William and Mary conducted an archeological excavation and preservation project in Africatown. It was funded by local and state agencies. He excavated three homesites of former enslaved people trafficked on the Clotilda: Peter Lee, Cudjo Kazoola Lewis, and Charlie Lewis. They identified some artifacts that may have been brought from Africa.

In 2012, there was clean-up work in the newly designated historic district, and the cemetery was cleaned and restored. About 2,000 people live there in 2018, including 100 known descendants of survivors of Clotilda.

Part of the community's land was appropriated by the government for the development of the western approach of the Cochrane-Africatown USA Bridge, completed in 1992. In 1997, descendants and friends formed the Africatown Community Mobilization Project to seek recognition of an Africatown Historic District and encourage the restoration and development of the town site.

Given its location along waterways, this area was developed for mills and other industrial uses, especially in the early 20th century. A paper plant was built in 1928 and operated for decades on land first owned by A. Meaher Jr. on the edge of Africatown.

In 2017, a group of about 1,200 residents launched a lawsuit against International Paper (IP), as this company had owned the now-shuttered paper plant.

In 2020, Alabama author Beth Duke featured Africatown in her novel Tapestry, which won a Southern Fiction medal from Publishers Weekly. "Tapestry incorporates important African-American history everyone should learn and remember.

In Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s Finding Your Roots, Season 4, Episode 9: "Southern Roots", December 12, 2017, he showed census data for Mobile and Captain William Foster's journal from the Clotilda, as part of explaining the family history of Questlove, a drummer and producer, head of The Roots.

His 3× great-grandparents Charles Lewis (b. c. 1820) and his wife Maggie (b. 1830), listed in the 1880 census as born in Africa, were among the captives brought from West Africa on the slave ship Clotilda.

Gates also discussed an article from The Tarboro Southerner, which reported on July 14, 1860, that 110 Africans had arrived in Mobile on Clotilda.

A historic neighborhood's fight for environmental justice

Africatown has been able to not only sustain the community constituents, but bring in outside support to bolster the community-led work. Flen says, “The community has really been in a defensive mode for a long, long, time, because it has not had a strategy to move forward. AHPF is one organization that has been developed with not just outside support, but community support in mind.

Flen says that with the development of AHPF, the community now has a way to receive funding directly rooted within the community itself.It’s also working to build trust with government officials who support the work of the community, like county commissioners that Flen says are helping Africatown set up a redevelopment corporation to address the community’s housing insecurity.

Africatown Descendants