Gained about africa tan. She has the pleasure also, of introducing our speaker for the hour. So let us welcome, her. Thank you very much. Good morning africatown. The spirit of our festival has been a seated by our ancestors its taking root like the baobab tree, under whom we are imparting knowledge about africatown to the world. I am proud to have served as the festivals inaugural speaker, and im equally proud to introduce my successor, doctor deborah, the story of the last black cargo. Doctor deborah plant is a African American literature scholar and literary critic, whose special interest is in the life and works of Zora Neale Hurston, the story of the last black cargo, she created what the New York Times says was a profound impact on Zora Neale Hurstons Literary History in publishing Zora Neale Hurstons account of the life story of clotilda survivor, an african town cofounder. Farrakhan one New York Times bestseller, time magazines best nonfiction look of 2018. And new york Public Libraries the spoke of 2018, among other accolades. She was instrumental in founding the u. S. F department of African Studies, and the department of its graduate program. She cheered for five, years and was associate professor of African Studies there until her appointment as associate professor of english in 2014. She holds a b. A. Degree in fine arts. An mma degree in french from atlanta university. And an mma as well as a ph. D. In english from the university of nebraska. Her published works include every time i sit on its own bottom, the philosophy of zuri hearst, in a biography of the spirit. The inside light. New critical insights on Zora Neale Hurston, and alice walker, it will mean for our times. Currently, the doctor resides in california, and continues her research as a scholar. Direct descendant, friends and family of africatown, please join me in extending this special africatown welcome to our kindred spirit, doctor deborah plant. One of the things that i like to do as i talk about the borough cone it invite the spirits to be with me as i do the best i can to represent them, and express what i think they would like for us to know. So i would also invite, i would like to invite you to invoke those ancestral spirits who will be with us today, during this event, and throughout the festival, so we will have their guidance as well as their inspiration and how things unfold. So this is the story Zora Neale Hurston was able to capture her story when he went out into the field back in 1927. On behalf of and kurt or she would send. Zora Neale Hurston as many of you might know was reared in eatonville florida, but she was born in alabama. And she went to school at howard university. She had a subsidy, she acquired her associate degree, and then transferred to Bernard College where she majored in english and after her matriculation steadied courses an anthropology and came to the attention of the father of american anthropology. At that time, she learned as much about anthropology as she did about writing, and the literature. As what her responsibilities, were what her tax tasks were was to collect folk, or to Archival Research on behalf of. Wooden woods in as we know is the father of black history month. So we look to him to thank him for black history month, but it started as black history week, and grew into black history month. Whitson was also the founder of the association for the study of knee grow life and history. On behalf of the association, and the journal of bleep history. He went down to alabama, to go to see him and ask him about the story of how he and his village had been destroyed. And this he had been forced into enslavement in alabama. So she did this. This is 1927 initially, she goes and gets the story from west africa, and how it destroyed the city. And she sends that report back to woods in. But she knew that there was more to the story. So she came back, so she came back the time she was able to spend with this person, several interviews, photographs, and things of that nature. [inaudible] that took time, that tech money. She had it. When she comes to see him, she says the first time that she met him was in july of 1927. When she comes back later in the year, and the summer, and then again in 1928, this is when she conducts a series of interviews and this is how she talks about it, it was summer, when i talk to him, his door was open. [inaudible] i knew he was somewhere in the house before i went to the yard. When he goes down to his back field while waiting for home, he locks his gait, with african invention. I called him by his african name as i walked up the steps of his porch. He was eating his breakfast around ten, with his hands in the fashion of the fatherland. He put his hand between pen and face. The tears of joy willed up. [inaudible] oh lord, i know when you come my name. Nobody calls mining from across the world are accept you. He says what is it that you want to know. The person tells him i want to know who you are, and how you came to be enslaved. How you fare as a slave. And how you have managed as a free man. What bowed and said when he lifted his face again he murmured, thank you jesus. Somebody is asking about me. Maybe they go in the african store. Theyre calling my name and someone there says yeah wolf i want you everywhere you go to tell everybody what i said, and why since 1859 i havent seen my people anymore. To understand me . Word by word, so wont be too crooked for me. My name is not when i get into american soil he tried calling my name. It was too long. I was like well are you proud of it . He said that works. But my mom, she named me kossola. So he tells her the story about his upbringing. About the rights of passage, and initiations, and learning how to hunt. Learning how to throw spears. He tells her about the young women in the village whom he sees and he likes, and he sees one in particular and he tells his parents to say when you see her, you be kind to her. What they do is that they are like ok we have to begin to prepare the assess initiation rites for marriage. Its during this time everything changes. This is, as he put it in a predawn raid, the amazon warriors stepped into the village and slaughtered so many. He and so many survived that slaughter. As they did, they were chained or tied together with others and marched down to the capital. Modern day benin. As they are held there, they are taken to the barracoon. Barracoon is a spanish word that has its roots in the terms that you see here. Basically, the words mean hut or shed. Describes these kind of structures were along the african coast. This is where captives would be held for those who waited for exchange for goods and materials what have you. They would wait there until the ships were docked. In relation to kossola and his compatriots, this was at that point in time when William Foster who was the captain of the clotilda had come where he was there to buy captives. And so we see africa there in the green to the right of the screen. Benin in white there. It was there he was taken. That is where William Foster navigated the clotilda. When it goes back, you can see the journey they took through the Middle Passage back to the coast of alabama. This map, my sister made this map. You wont find this map in any book. You see this white ship there, that symbolizes the clotilda. It went up to the point where they disembarked in the cane field. After that, you know the story wherein William Foster takes the boat and then he settles there to try to get rid of the evidence. Lets go to the next one. Timothy mayer and William Foster. I have given a lot of thoughts about barracoon and almost never has someone asked me about Timothy Meaher and William Foster. But i think we will talk a little bit about them because of what they represent. When we look at timothy who funded the clotilde expedition, he was one of three brothers with all kinds of businesses here in alabama. To have those businesses run, they used the labor of African People. And so we want to understand what that means and we want to understand why that is problematic. Theres nothing wrong with wealth. Theres nothing wrong with wanting to do well and be successful, but there is a problem when youre wealth and your success depends on the exploitation of the life force of other people. And this was their means and their method to come to their socalled success. What hurston learned in her interviews, was as she put it, she learned about the universal nature of greed and glory. This is the face of greed and glory. What is problematic, as i said, is when there is no end. When you think that access is normal and access is what you acquire because of your expectation of other people, then that is a problem. That is the greed aspect of it. The glory aspect of it is that for people like timothy, the idea was that that was his right to do that. It was his right as a man, it was his right as a white man. It was his right, as he believed, because as he and 70 others at that point in time and today, he believed it was his right because he believed that white was superior. The notion of White Supremacy is this idea of as a white man he was building a empire off box of white people. This is his glory. And this is his right he believes. This kind of arrogance. This kind of concede. This kind of self righteousness, that becomes a ideology that allows people to exploit anyone or everyone for their own benefit is a problem that we have to attend to. Its not all right. The thing about greed and glory is that its not particular to any particular group of people. The thing is that they couldnt do it they did without the support of king, and, they couldnt do it we have to look for that within ourselves. Where is the greed or glory in me. Where am i striving for something that is not my right, who am i taking advantage of to get to this point, to that point. Yes. This bet that made. Its another indication of the arrogance of the man. So it says that within two years, this is 1815, i can within two years bring a shipload of africans and force them into servitude. And nobody will be hanged for it. This is important. No one will be hanged for. It why is it still a concern . The u. S. Constitution in 1807 stated that International Travel should be banned. That going to africa and bargaining for people. Bringing them back and forcing them into servitude was no longer a practice that the United States would partaken. So it was illegal. That was 1807. And still from that point would continue this illegal practice. Even though that ban was put in place, it had not really been enforced. So in order to enforce it, the constitution was amended several more times. By 1820, in addition to penalties and monetary fines and funding expeditions buildings, outfitting for that purpose. In addition to that fine they added the penalty of branding you as a pirate. As this act of piracy, then you were to be hanged. But in over 50 years, only one man was ever hanged for all of the socalled illegal trafficking that was done in america. Even then, he said he had not done anything wrong. We hear that a lot. Timothy and foster, they took them to court. Timothys case was dismissed. William fosters case didnt make it, it was thrown out. So we have these examples of white arrogant men who believe they are above the law. We see why this is a problem and why we have to look at it because this is not new. We hear it today, but it is not new. The idea that you can do whatever you want to whomever you want. The fact is that they get away with it. [applause] this is part of our American Heritage that we have to do something about. This is not the america we want. This was the kind of constitutional act that bans trafficking. Which he did not adhere to, did not want to. The thing about it that the enforcement of the law is so difficult because so many people thought just like Timothy Meaher. The customs officers, senators and judges saw it just like this. There is so much in terms of this ideology. Like, this is what people learn. This is what people heard in church. This is what people heard in their social gatherings and groups. This is what the scientists are saying, that there is a master class, it is white people, and they are superior. Everyone else is inferior according to a hierarchy with africans at the bottom. And so it is their right to exploit, dominate. We see how problematic it is. The thing with this idea. We see how problematic it is. We see the destruction that its brought. The idea of White Supremacy is like the bottom line, the foundational problem out of which came the civil war. And that breach still a breach that we have to heal today. The idea of White Supremacy is an idea itself, that is inferior. And we have to do something about that. [applause] okay, William Foster, the captain, was equally arrogant. And very much a white supremacist. He wrote he wrote an essay or his wife rode it for him that basically detailed the whole journey. The whole thing from alabama to the on the west coast of africa. He told to where they tech. All this thing he lays it out in this letter. Why does he write a letter . He had heard that another captain had said that he had but the last illegal cargo to america. He wanted to know that it was he who had done it. He sent this letter to make sure that people knew he had done it. It was a point of pride, to defy the government. The federal government. And both of them. William and timothy were pirates. They were criminals. It doesnt look like it in the state of alabama, but they were criminals. And it doesnt matter that it was drawn out, the thing about it, in 1861 alabama succeeds from the union. But this was done in 1860. It was a good one. Okay, next one please. So because of that notion, that African People could be used as Something Like cattle, that is they could use us as the we were cows or horses, what have you. The idea that they could just go into africa, and bargain, and bring us over here to work and produce wealth for them. Bear with me a second. It resulted in so much suffering. I and kossola shared this with kirsten. He put it this way. He tells her in detail about the he says the folks that sleep, get away with the noise, i hear the gate when they break it. I hear the elle of soldiers. Therefore, i jump out of the bed. I see a great many soldiers with guns in their hands at midnight. Theyve got their weapons, they run with the big night, and make noise. They catch people, and southern neck like this with a knife. Then they twist their heads off, and it comes off the neck. Oh lord, lord, ive seen people get killed so fast. The old ones, they tried to run from the house, but theyre dead by the door. The women soldiers, got their head as well. Oh lord. When i think about those times, i try not to cry anymore. My eyes dont stop crying, but the tears running down when the men are with them, i called my moms name, i dont know where she is. I dont see my family. I begged the man to let me go find the folks. The soldiers say theyve got no ears for crying. So they tied me in the line with the rest. And so we see the disruption, and the chaos, and the trauma that people experience. When we look at whats kossola more experienced, you multiply that, and you get a sense of the pain that people have in their very bones. This pain, this grief, it simply means, uprooting being uprooted, taken away from everything that you know. He was calling for his number mother. I want my mother. Not only did he lose his mother. When they took him across the passage, he lost his mother tongue. Would i like to remind people when they are reading baritone, thats one of the reasons the book wasnt published. The publicist said we want your story, but we want you to write it and language rather than dialect. Now that means a lot of things, and we dont have that kind of time, but suffice it to say, you know that, first of all, when they say we wanted language, were talking about what they call standard english. But that is really the language of the establishment. And they dont want to hear it in his language. But it is his story. Why should it be in another language. And the thing about it that id like to remind you of is that this language that he wrote in, and her stan, she wrote, it transcribed it in the way he spoke, and she was supposed to do that. She was a ethnography. Or ethnography years know that language is a identifying feature of any person in a group and eight people. You dont change. That we knew change, language you change everything. When kossola was taken, he was 19 years old. These folks the question becomes how does this young man at 18 years old speak of some variation of winds up in album speaking a black vernacular with the alabama accent. Didnt speak this in west africa. So the question is what happened to him, that this is now the language that he speaks . And everything that happened to barracoon as both, kossola she shows us our [inaudible] and also shows us with the medicine is. And so the wounding is discreet, its a loss. The wounding is everything that he would never, ever, be able to see or experience. The loneliness. He lost so much when he was uprooted from the continent but also here in alabama. This is the wounding. And as he talksto hurston, he is grieving, full of grief still. Sometimes she had to leave him there and let him walk out and just be with his memories. They were so potent. It was like he was looking at the same actions that had occurred when he was on the continent. This deep grief is also part of our heritage. But as walker puts it, along with the wounding, he also shows us the medicine. What is the medicine . Next slide. The medicine. It is the fact that we are here. Not every ship that crossed the Middle Passage made it. Not everybody aboard those ships made it. Not everybody who experienced enslavement made it out enslavement. Not everybody survived. So just surviving is a huge matter. We are here. The fact that we could survive means yes, we are physically strong. Mentally and emotionally, but it does not mean that we dont have things to deal with. That is part of the wounding and these are also things we have to look at. The thing about kossola is that when he is upset when he feels hurt and his pain comes up, he lets you know. He cried. We dont do that. We are like, how are you doing . Im fine. Youre lying. [laughter] we are not t l]kykyzq comes up when we are hurt. That wounding. When he is talking to that person, that is therapy, but some of us are afraid of that there. Because that is part of the medicine. Its when we dont talk, when we dont allow the emotions to move that we begin to have problems. Sometimes, youre sad and you dont even know why. Thats all it is. That is all it is. I just am feeling some kind of way. So we are here, and even though we have survived that physical transportation and all that we have had to go through, we are still here. And we are able to continue. This is what the people of africatown were able to do, to continue. Now, when we look at the phenomenon of all of these people who survived and actually stayed in this area, we have to be touched and inspired because they came in here with nothing, literally. There is a verse that says naked you come into the world and naked you will go out. When we look at that, kossola literally came here naked. What he had from his country people, what they were used to wearing, they took it from them. They brought him here with nothing. How can you come to a place with nothing and build a town. Build a town . This is the medicine. Because even though they didnt have anything physical, they came with knowledge of traditional africa, cultural africa. They brought that with them. And for me, he talks about what the society did and didnt do with criminals, with people who should or shouldnt do things, he talked about the elders, he talked about the women, and there was social structure. There were initiation rites for this and that. They had a society they were not just running around like something you see on cartoons. They had harmony, they had order, they had balance in their society. That was upended. But it did not and them. So they use that to build on. They drew on the traditional african cultural heritage. The traditional African World view, you get a sense of that when he is talking about his daughter. He said that is the first time death was on my door. What he is talking about is the fact that death is a part of life. This is the traditional African Worldview. Its not like this is something bad or wrong, but a part of life. He says when we laid the foundation for the baptist church, we cleared the land on the way. This is the circle of life. You are born, you go through your initiation as you grow into adulthood. You live to become an elder and to be that guidance for your people. When you die, you transition into becoming an ancestor. And as an ancestor, then you spiritually guide generations to come. This is them guiding us. Somebody said earlier, those ancestors who came earlier, there in with us today with every descendent in here looking at us through those eyes. And this is the power of the ancestors. You know, in america when you are old, you go to an old folks home. But they respected age and wisdom. It was an integral part of the life of the people. And so when hurston is talking to him as saying youre telling me this and telling me that, i want to know about you. He says, where is the house where the mouse is the ruler . I have to tell you about my father, and my grandfather. And so he does. And so the circle of life, this world view, this is part of the medicine. The remembering is part of the medicine. The community. The ingenuity. When she talks about his fist being open, and he has a pen that he uses that as she puts, it is made of african ingenuity. This is part of what he brought over here with him. They brought this with him. And the most important aspect of the medicine that he shares with us, is that of being a human being. Why is that important . Because in those days, and some of these days, the idea was that African People were not quite human. Not only were we seen as not quite human, we were also told that we had no spirit. That god had nothing to do with us. Right. And so, what he expresses to us through this narrative is the humanity of African People. And the person was able to capture that. To capture his humanity and his divinity. At the fine essence is in everything that has been created. That does not leave us out. And what we learn from him is that no matter how brutal, he was treated, he still had compassion. No matter what was taken, from him, no matter the loss he experienced, he still had generosity. And no matter what the pain you experienced, he was able to love, he was able to be kind. He was able to be tender. He said you see that sugarcane over there . But i grew that so my granddaughters want something, they come to me and say, i want some sugar cane, i will have that for them. He was good to his children. He was kind to his wife. He was tender. And a companion to those and his community. This is the humanity that he expresses. The next one please. One other thing. The other thing is in terms of the medicine is that in spite of all of the trauma and the tragedy that he went through, he was still able to laugh. In the appendix of the book there are stories that he would tell to hurston, he was still able to laugh to the point of tears. It wasnt just that wed, cry would cry tears of joy, that was also part of his life. He was not just somebody that was so radically violated, and that that was all he was. He never was just someone who was taken, and forced into servitude. He was always a complete and whole human being. Matt and so yes, im going to run through these and bring it to a close. Africa town, after, emancipation, shortly after, people found a town. A Community Called africatown. It could have been a town. Everything that they needed they created themselves. We want that church. We build ourselves a church. They dont want to go to another church where the other African Americans would make fun of them. They had pride. Were going to have our own. They created their own. They said we want to school . We will build a school. And will have the teachers. They were self governing. They knew how they want to live with one another. To help one another. Support one another when somebody needed a, house everybody helped to build the house. That is community. And so, so we have what the founded, we have with a built. So we have a foundation. Next one. You know that sign. You see it all the time. My sister took that picture. Okay next one. See, there is a street sign for africatown. I have never seen that before. So i told her to take a picture of that. And that is Union Baptist church, which is in the place of the Old Landmark Baptist Church which is where worked as a [inaudible] after the injury with the train. That is the bus in front of the church, the old landmark old plateau cemetery. Its across the street. You see the whole circle of life but i was talking about. When kossola says when we built the church, we cleared the land for at the cemetery. You put a six lane highway right through, and divide both of them, you have to take your hand life into your hands. To get to the other side. Why would they do that in our community . It was initially africatown. There were like you asked them to do that. You changed it . Okay what do we have . So its just that there is so much that we have to work towards in terms of involving our consciousness, but events like this helps to do that. And its what we have to do. Because so much of what we do we do unconsciously. Which means basically that we keep repeating the past. And if we want a different future, we have to bring conscious awareness to what we do. These are just some of the things that are going on today that signify that we are moving into a different kind of consciousness. The next one. This is a door of no return. Apparently we do return. And ambassadors from benin have been here to apologize. Their consciousness has been raised by these issues. They know that we have to be responsible, and we have to acknowledge what we have done. You know, it is not to attack or blame. But it is to acknowledge what someone has done. This is how we help to heal these ones. Benin ambassadors can come here and they perform rituals to appease the spirits of their ancestors here. People in alabama can do the same thing. And you know, this is a bird that is basically a symbol of looking back, going back to get what you missed, or what was taken, or were to overlooked. Its about looking back to retrieve what has been lost, so that you integrate with that is, the wisdom of it into your present consciousness. If you notice with this bird, i dont know if you see it, the head is turned backwards, the feet are turned forward. So you move towards the future that you want. Next one. This brings us to a close. What we still have to learn in this country is that all of us here are human beings. And as Martin Luther king said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, and all those treating anyone inhumanely anywhere is a threat to our humanity everywhere. We have to be mindful of that, as we go forward. [applause] [captions dr. Plant, thank you, thank you, thank you. [indiscernible] going through it and putting it all together, did you envision what the nation would be going through no. [laughter] i had no thought about the impact. I was continuously surprised, and i continue to be surprised. And when i look at his story i am like, yeah, and its like you know theoretically what what a word means, but that is an abstract. That is academic. And that is very important. Barracoon was her first book. It proceeds Everything Else that she wrote. It proceeded all of the other things. This is her first book, and the first word of someone who had not even quite finished, undergraduate school. That ought to let you know what you can do. She had not finished barnard college, when she did this work. To so it speaks to her genius as a social scientist, she was a genius social scientist. I am a descendent of cudjoe kossola lewis, and i want to let you know how proud i am that you brought truth and authenticity to his life. [indiscernible] i wanted to know how important it was to remain authentic to his truth, for you . It was very important that i would do that. First of all, before they began to edit work i asked for gods guidance and didnt with this. I am a black native speaker. That is my native tongue. So i understood that dialect. It wasnt something foreign for me. And i was glad i was one of the people considered to edit it, because it was important to keep it intact, not just because black english is my mother tongue. I have researched and taught courses on black dialect, so i know the importance of it. I know what that language means. It was important, i think it was really good i have the background i have in terms of my research with black english, or what people call ebonics, black vernacular, whatever descriptions you want to use. Because in editing the manuscript, there were several versions. There was a typed version that was typed up from longhand, and the process was usually to write out her manuscripts in longhand, and then she would type. And then she would revise by typing again. And in those different drafts, words could get misspelled or left out at those kinds of things. So to know the rhythm of the language and to know her ideas about the true transcriptions of speech, because i studied what she studied. Another idea about how to transcribe spoken words, this is part of her learning as an anthropologist. So knowing her process, i know her approach when she took that narrative down, so i can stay true to not only kossola, but the transcription of kossola, by knowing the transcription process. And that was very important to me, because this was his words. He said, i want you to tell everyone what i say. And i thought that was my job. What relationship was [indiscernible] well, they were friends until they werent. [laughter] she had written to Langston Hughes that she had found a man called cudjoe. But she had found a female older than him, so what was the relationship with langston . They were mostly just friends, and langston for the most part saw him as a younger brother. Sometimes, hurston would take him on her folklore collecting expeditions, so she saw him as a colleague, a younger brother, and to someone who was standing up for the folks. Langston hughes wrote in dialect as well, and part of his work was to capture the folk spirit, the folk eat ethos in the work they produced. So they were working at a place where things would arise, and there was a lot of confusion, but the long and short of that is that hurston felt like he betrayed her in working with someone else and giving her credit. They had a fallout, they tried to repair the relationship, but it didnt quite get back together the way it was. That describes their relationship. Thank you. Welcome to africatown. My name is annie lee hill, and i wonder if you have found any of the families of the founders of africantown, and whether you are getting stories of their loved ones or the capture of their loved ones. That is a good question. I would pass that question to my associate. She actually went there, she is one of the scholars who literally, detail by detail, town by town, went to africa to track down these stories. She knows that part of this story. You want to answer that . And i havent been, but ive been trying to get my tickets. [laughter] youve got to go where the people are that you have been writing about. Thank you, dr. Plant. [laughter] [applause] one of the important aspects of african culture, families and communities, is that they tend to stay intact over many generations. So you do have individuals who are closely associated some of the descendents on this side, although we dont know who all those associations are. In the case of cudjoe, you could find people in the southwestern region of nigeria that know about his roots in that part of nigeria. Nigeria is huge. There are millions of people in nigeria, and there is a lot of Cultural Diversity in nigeria. In addition to that, my Research Documents some of that history by way of the individuals who still live in that family. He was captured on a royal farmsted and that royal farmsted still exists, that region of nigeria still exists, and a part of what keeps that history alive are the historians who are connected to the royal palace. So while it is not always possible to find individuals who are directly connected, you do have individuals that know the history of a particular community, of a particular family, by way of local historians in various african communities. Some of my Research Captures their voices. It also captures the voices of some of the royal individuals of that area, and it captures the voices of the descendents of the slave traders, who sold cudjo and his shipmates into slavery. So this is a special case and the case of the clotilda and africantown is very rare, because we have the opportunity to trace the descendents on that side of the atlantic. Thank you for the question. One more question. We were one of the founders that kept our last name. Would it be easy to track that name in africa . When i first heard the name, i suspected he came from an area called kepi hills, in the northern region, north of the area in which cudjoe was captured. And reports say the clotilda cargo was a very diverse cargo, and you had slave raids being conducted all over the region. Even though i was not able to establish with specificity that he indeed came from the kepi hills region, what my research does show is that many of the names of the clotilda africans were not personal ones, especially the africans that came from central nigeria. Many of those names were not personal ones, but they were from places from which they hailed. And although kepi is not in nigeria, i would not dispute that connection between that name of the africans in the kepi hills of west africa. [applause] lets give dr. Plant another round of applause for a wonderful wonderful presentation. We are blessed to have her in our community to enlighten us. [applause] music
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