Land and Housing

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 W. Bush once famously said,"Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me."

Of the 65 plus years I have spent on this earth, nearly 60 of those years I have been a resident of the Africatown Community and The City Of Mobile. I spent 4 years away in Virginia earning a Business Degree in College and 2 years of active Military Service in The Marine Corps. I am probability one of the few Africatown natives in Mobile that can successfully name all 4 swimming holes within the Africatown community utilized by Africatown residents during the 1950's and 1960's.

Community Blight can normally be cleared up in two ways: by restoring the structure considered as blight or by tearing it down. Typically, it is easier and cheaper to tear something down than to repair it.

The Africatown Community is different than most African - American Communities because about 50 percent of the community has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places and should be protected and restored at all costs.

(Photo: Oberlin College students at Baheth R & D Laboratories Ltd)

On October 18, 2015, two vans carrying students, teachers and their supplies arrived in Mobile from Oberlin College in Cleveland, Ohio, to learn more about Africatown and assist ongoing efforts to help revive the community.

This was their second trip to Africatown in the past year, which indicate how serious the students, teachers and their school are about how they feel about Africatown and how much they want to see something positive happen for its residents.

This is my full speech from the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on Sunday, March 9, in commemoration of the 50th Commemoration of Bloody Sunday. Due to time constraints, the original was cut down to one minute, so I am sharing my full thoughts here.

This post was originally written for the Come Hell or High Water: The Battle for Turkey Creek film website but seemed fitting for Bridge The Gulf because it's about how the story of a community on the Mississippi Gulf Coast is impacting communities in other parts of the country.

I had a Professor of Economics in college tell his students "there is a lot of money to be made when dealing with poor people and children. Neither are in control of their own future and both allow others to make decisions for them. Businesses are allowed to build and tear down housing projects to move them around like nomads all in the name of good. While those in charge of solving the poverty problem are not interested in doing so because if they did their jobs would disappear.

Africatown's Magazine Point Neighborhood 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 that portion that sets on the Three Mile Creek has a spiritual connection because it is the place where that last slave shipment would baptize themselves.