Klik op een omslag om naar Google Boeken te gaan.
Bezig met laden... Africatown: America's Last Slave Ship and the Community It Createddoor Nick Tabor
Geen Bezig met laden...
Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Africatown: America’s Last Slave Ship and the Community It Created by Nick Tabor is a well documented, well-researched book giving the history of the Clotilda, the last slave ship and the human cargo of 110 men, women, and children it brought from Africa to America in 1860, long after the trans-Atlantic slave trade had been banned and just before the start of the Civil War. It covers a lot of history from the capture and kidnapping of Kussola later known as Cudjo Lewis, through the years of slavery, emancipation and the decision of several of the ship mates to purchase land and create their own community first called African Town later Africatown, right up to the present and the descendants’ efforts to make Africatown a national historical site as well as their fight against the environmental racism that eventually surrounded the town. Tabor uses both primary and secondary sources to tell the story including Zora Neale Hurston’s book Barracoon and is very careful to identify what is actually known and what is speculation. With this amount of history, there seemed the possibility, like too many books of history, to become overly pedantic or devolve into a dry information dump but Tabor manages to avoid either, making this a very interesting, highly readable and, given the political atmosphere today, a very important book. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review A thoroughly researched and comprehensive exploration of Africatown's history and the on-going struggle to preserve the community. Africatown takes the reader on a journey through history beginning with the kidnapping of Kussola/Cudjo Lewis by the Dahomey Kingdom for sale into slavery and Timothy Meaher's and William Foster's plans to smuggle slaves into the US from West Africa. From there it explores the building of the community after emancipation and the struggles it has faced up to the present day issues of industrial pollution and destruction of historical sites. The author does well in providing context for his sources and sorting out what is likely to be fact versus exaggeration or misinformation. While dry at times, overall it was interesting and told well. geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
"In 1860, a ship called the Clotilda was smuggled through the Alabama Gulf Coast, carrying the last group of enslaved people ever brought to the U.S. from West Africa. Five years later, the shipmates were emancipated, but they had no way of getting back home. Instead they created their own community outside the city of Mobile, where they spoke Yoruba and appointed their own leaders, a story chronicled in Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon. That community, Africatown, has endured to the present day, and many of the community residents are the shipmates' direct descendants. After many decades of neglect and a Jim Crow legal system that targeted the area for industrialization, the community is struggling to survive. Many community members believe the pollution from the heavy industry surrounding their homes has caused a cancer epidemic among residents, and companies are eyeing even more land for development. At the same time, after the discovery of the remains of the Clotilda in the riverbed nearby, a renewed effort is underway to create a living memorial to the community and the lives of the slaves who founded it. An evocative and epic story, Africatown charts the fraught history of America from those who were brought here as slaves but nevertheless established a home for themselves and their descendants in the face of persistent racism"-- Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
Actuele discussiesGeen
Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)305.8960Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Groups of people Ethnic and national groups ; racism, multiculturalism Other Groups African OriginLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
Ben jij dit?Word een LibraryThing Auteur. |
The first half of the book was more engrossing to me, with the strong emotional through-line provided by Kussola/Cudjo's story, which is intensely personal and heart-breaking. While the latter half of the book covers some extremely important topics—not least the environmental racism which blighted the lives of Africatown inhabitants in the 20th and into the 21st centuries; the government of both Mobile and the state of Alabama as a whole does not come out of this well, to put it mildly—the lack of a strong mooring personality here makes it feel more disjointed. Despite this, Africatown is an important and all-too-timely read. ( )