Race and Racial Justice

Originally Posted on Life Support Project. “My husband died of renal failure, my neighbor died of renal failure, my other neighbor behind me died of cancer. The lady over there, her granddaughter’s six months pregnant, and was just diagnosed with breast cancer. They live right here at the pit.”

We’re standing in the parking lot of the Marie K. Young Community Center in the Wedgewood community of Pensacola, Florida, a quiet African-American neighborhood.

On Wednesday, advocates and neighbors protested the plan to build a new school on the site of the former Booker T. Washington High, because of concerns over toxic contamination. The site was home to the Silver City / Clio Street Dump from the 1890s through the 1930s.

The Recovery School District (RSD) plans to build a new school on a toxic site in New Orleans, and it has the blessing of the state’s Department of Environmental Quality. But a lawsuit and growing community opposition seek to stop the plan.

To commemorate the 155th anniversary of the beginning of the Africatown saga and the 154th anniversary of the landing of the last recorded shipment of slaves to this country, here is a summary of the "Africatown Story" from 1859 to today. (As told to me by Mr. Henry Williams as he taught Sunday School at Yorktown Baptist Church).

Most of you have heard of "Fats Domino" and "Minnesota Fats" but have you ever heard of "Africatown Fats"? He was an unsung community baseball champion who touched the lives of hundreds of players through his involvement in owning and managing a "negro" baseball team in Mobile, Alabama during the ‘40s, ‘50s, ’60s, and ‘70s.

I learned recently that someone very special, and a powerful voice in Come Hell or High Water: The Battle for Turkey Creek, died on the day before the film was broadcast. A tribute to Eva Skinner.

Mobile has lapsed into a coma. Whether it stays stupefied or recovers will indicate whether it wishes to continue existence as constant reruns of historic hallucinations or to create a liveable future.

“The world must know what they [BP] have done to this community. This place could have been a paradise.” Those are the words of Byron Encalade, president of Louisiana Oystermen’s Association and the face of a beautiful and devastating new documentary film, Vanishing Pearls.