Culture and Traditions

Thanks to the dedicated efforts of the Mobile County Training School Alumni Association President Anderson Flen and the hard work of alumni George Jackson, Isaac Jones, Cleophas Armstead, Curtis Malone and Alphonso Fairly, the historic tradition of Africatown's freedom bell will live on as a new bell was dedicated on the campus of historic Mobile County Training School on August 23, 2017.

Africatown, AL -- Supporters and friends of the Africatown community recently took it upon themselves to replace two historic community treasures that were removed or destroyed more than twenty years ago. Two historic institutions of the community - the Union Missionary Baptist Church of Africatown and the Mobile County Training School Alumni Association - worked together to replace the bust of Cudjo Lewis and the treasured Africatown freedom bell.

The Historic Community of Africatown experienced several occurrences this summer that could be looked upon as a new beginning, as our community continues to do things it hope will contribute to the revitalization and growth of Africatown that will help in the revitalization, growth and tourism of the entire city of Mobile, Alabama.

The story of Africatown's Bell is a community folklore that has been passed along for years but is based on facts because most Mobile County Training School graduates over the age of 40 have either seen, touched or rang the bell. 

When the last shipment of slaves landed in America in 1860, they originally stayed in a camp along the Mobile River inhabited by a group of slaves known as the Moors. That co-habitation did not go well and they eventually moved inland and formed the township of Plateau. They begin buying up land, building schools and churches and expanding the community to about 2,000 acres or about five square miles. Eventually, other former slaves heard about this sanctuary and began moving to Africatown.

The Africatown community is one of several city gems that are located on the dock of the Mobile River (which flows into the Mobile Bay) that are paramount to the success of the tourism industry in the city of Mobile.

“Cannons to the right of them, cannons to the left of them, cannons in front of them, volley’d and thunder’d, storm’d at with shot and shell, boldly they rode and rode well, into the jaws of death, into the mouth of Hell, rode the six hundred.” - from the Charge of the Light Brigade, by Alfred Tennyson

More than 500 years ago, before the arrival of the first Europeans, vast civilizations flourished in what is now called the Americas.

Trade routes and commerce had long been established across the Rockies and the Andes, from the farthest northern to the farthest southern regions of the Americas. It has been said that this was the time of union for Indigenous Peoples, the time of the Condor and the Eagle.

The Condor represents the Indigenous Peoples of the south, while the Eagle represents the Indigenous Peoples of the north.