Tag Archive for Africatown

Discovery of Slave Ship Clotilda Gives Polluted Africatown Publicity Boost

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Historically Black Town Fights Toxic Waste – By D. Amari Jackson – In the spring of 1860, a year before the Civil War, a wealthy Alabama shipbuilder and plantation owner named Timothy Meaher chose to toy with the escalating tensions between North and South by making a despicable wager. Despite strict laws forbidding the import…

Africatown Residents Won’t Let City of Mobile Pull an ‘Okey-Doke’ With Proposed Storage Tank Ordinance

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Will the City Government Side With the People or Industry? By Joe Womack – The “okey-doke,” as defined by Urban Dictionary and Africatown folklore means to pull the wool over your opposition’s eyes, to outsmart your opposition, to say one thing and mean another or to gain the upper hand by using trickery. President George…

Setbacks a Setback – But Not Defeat – For Mobile Tank Foes

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By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – After a couple years trudging through the weeds and thickets of laws, regulations, technical standards, hazard assessments, health effects, economic impacts and other consequences of petroleum storage tanks, Mobile has arrived at nearly the same place it began this trek. On June 11 a three-member subcommittee presented its…

Africatown’s Magazine Point Neighborhood: A Series of Tragedies And Miracles

View of downtown from Africatown

By Joe Womack – Africatown’s Magazine Point Neighborhood sets on the southern and southeastern portions of the Africatown community. It is situated on both the Mobile River and the Three Mile Creek. The part of Magazine Point that sets on the Mobile River is where that last shipment of slaves in America actually landed, whereas…

Mobile Residents Say No to Canadian Tar Sands Crude Oil Tank Farms

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Will the City Government Side With the People or Industry? By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — The citizens of Mobile, especially those in the historic Africatown community along with members of the Mobile Bay Sierra Club, have held public meetings and spoken up: They do not want the Mobile Planning Commission and the City…

Africatown Residents Win Victory Over Industrial Zoning in Historic Community

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Africatown News – By Joe Womack – On December 16, 2014 the Africatown Community attended a meeting hosted by The Yorktown Baptist Church to voice their opposition to local industries attempt to re-zone a section of Africatown just North of The Community Gardens from residential to industrial. More than 150 Africatown residents, supporters and friends…

Africatown Residents Oppose Industrial Rezoning for Steel Warehouse

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Planning Commission Denies Rezoning By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — More than 140 residents of Africatown turned out at a town hall public meeting Tuesday night to oppose an industrial rezoning that would open the way for a steel storage warehouse right across the street from a proposed tar sands crude oil tank city…

Africatown’s Hog Bayou At Risk From Industry, Again

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Africatown News – By Joe Womack – The historical value of Africatown’s Hog Bayou was carved in stone long before the Oil Barons of the world discovered Africatown’s valuable wetlands. Africatown’s Hog Bayou will forever be known as the place in Mobile where the “African” slaves taught the “American” slaves how to feed themselves and…

Africatown: A Tradition and Struggle Like No Other

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By Joe Womack – To commemorate the 155th anniversary of the beginning of the Africatown saga and the 154th anniversary of the landing of the last recorded shipment of slaves to this country, here is a summary of the “Africatown Story” from 1859 to today. (As told to me by Mr. Henry Williams as he…

Mobile Alabama’s Historic Africatown At Risk From Tar Sands Oil Storage Tanks, Pipelines

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Watch and Share the Video – By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — Joe Womack of Africatown is not happy with the administration of his old school, the Mobile County Training School, from where he graduated in 1968. He is not happy with the administration of his home town of Mobile. And he’s afraid for…

The Mis-Education of Mobile on an Oil Pipeline Through Africatown

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School Superintendent Instructs Adults in Non-Critical Thinking, Which Contributes to Environmental Injustice – By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – Enabler. That’s the current jargon for a very old idea. The serpent was an enabler. He didn’t force anything upon Eve. He just helped her decide to do what she wanted with the apple but…