Africatown and the Essence of Black Power with Dr. Natalie S. Robertson
Black History Year
PushBlack
4.6 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 13 November 2020
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Black power has many forms: a fist in the air, a liberated mind, or the ownership of the ground upon which you stand. The founders of Africatown, a self-determined community of freed Black people in Alabama knew this kind of Black power. In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston delved deep into this question when she interviewed Cudjo Kazoola, the last surviving member of the community that had founded Africatown. Dr. Natalie Robertson expands on Hurston’s work, the importance of Africatown, and the essential elements of Black empowerment.
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Useful Links:
"The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Making of Africatown" by Dr. Natalie Robertson
"Barracoon: The Story of the Last 'Black Cargo'" by Zora Neale Hurston
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Black Power. |
| 0:04.0 | Sometimes it's talked about as a state of mind. |
| 0:07.0 | Sometimes as a shift in power and wealth. |
| 0:11.0 | Sometimes it's something for the soul. |
| 0:13.0 | But when you're torn away from your home, |
| 0:16.0 | reclaiming your power may come from something much more tangible. |
| 0:21.0 | I'm Jay, and you're listening to Black History Year. 1860 Alabama. Alabama. Tim Mayer was arrogant, greedy, and a failed businessman. |
| 0:46.0 | He was also a gambling man, and despite the ban on importing enslaved Africans 50 years prior, |
| 0:52.0 | he wagered. Inside two years. According to |
| 0:54.4 | Yers prior, he wagered. Inside two years, I myself can bring a ship full of niggers right into Mobile Bay |
| 0:59.2 | under the officer's noses. |
| 1:06.9 | Mayor made good on his bet to smuggle and enslave 100 of our ancestors from present bay Benin to Alabama. But this isn't a story about him or his sadistic bet. This is a story about land. |
| 1:20.0 | Oluele Kossola stumbled off the Clotilde slave ship in 1860 and onto the muddy soil of Mobile, Alabama. |
| 1:28.0 | The mud may have been warm between his toes, but all he felt was the coldness of loss. |
| 1:34.4 | It had been months since he'd seen Benin, his West African home, and the memory of it made |
| 1:39.8 | him weep. |
| 1:41.5 | His capture had been swift and brutal. The journey across the Atlantic was nothing short of repulsive. |
| 1:48.0 | For five years, he endured back-breaking labor as the property of Meher until the vile practice of enslaving black bodies ended. |
| 1:56.8 | Well, on paper. |
| 2:00.3 | Kosola was now called Koo Joe Lewis. |
| 2:03.0 | He had a wife and children and none of them had ever seen the beauty of his country. |
| 2:08.0 | Over the years and the pain and the struggle, |
... |
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