While I had nothing to do with the first 2 items mentioned above, I did have a small part in the Descendant Documentary and I am proud to say that I was part of the Local, State, Regional and National Team that met over a ten month period and planned this event. This event held the weekend of May 3, 2024 placed Africatown at the top of America’s Environmental Justice watch list. Something like this has only happened once before back in 2000 in Spartanburg, S.C. with The ReGenesis Project where the community, business leaders, political leaders and government officials came together and agreed upon ways to improve the environmental conditions in Spartanburg and improve the quality of life for its residents. That project still continues today because something of this magnitude takes time to develop and is not completed overnight.
There were 40 organizations or individuals invited to attend the Friday’s roundtable discussions. They were: The Environmental Protection Agency, Alabama Dept. of Environmental Management, Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson, Mobile County Commissioner Merceria Ludgood, State Senator Vivian Figures, State Representative Adline Clark, Mobile City Councilman William Carroll, Africatown-CHESS, Africatown Heritage Preservation Foundation, Mobile Environmental Justice Action Coalition, Africatown Re-Development Corporation, The University of South Alabama, Mobile Bay Keepers, Alabama Coastal Foundation, University of Montevallo, Birmingham Southern College, Local Corps of Engineers, Mobile County FEMA, Mobile Environmental Representative, Mobile Resilience Officer, Mobile Chamber of Commerce, Mobile Black Chamber of Commerce, Alabama Dept. of Transportation, Mobile NAACP, Greater Birmingham Alliance to stop Pollution(GASP), Southern Environmental Law Center, Mobile Center for Fair Housing, Mobile Housing Board, Alabama State Docks/Port of Mobile, Clotilda Descendants Assoc., Africatown Community Development
Friday’s roundtable discussions and break out sessions were very lively and could have lasted into the night. As the day wore on it became more and more apparent that we needed more than one day to talk about Africatown’s needs and concerns. The 3 day schedule was very well organized and planned out. However, it could have easily been a 4 or 5 day event had we known that the level of interest, concern and help would be this high. The schedule was organized in a way that those