mobile

Bridge the Gulf, along with many along the Gulf Coast and beyond, is mourning the loss of David Underhill, who passed away on November 8. David was a Bridge the Gulf contributor, an unwavering advocate for the Gulf Coast and a personal friend to many.

As Derrick Evans said,

Quick, tell me. Do we have failing schools, failing students or a failing public?

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.

(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.

Originally posted in New American Journal on September 6th.

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.

Originally posted in New American Journal on June 17th

MOBILE, Ala. – After a couple years trudging through the weeds and thickets of laws, regulations, technical standards, hazard assessments, health effects, economic impacts and other consequences of petroleum storage tanks, Mobile has arrived at nearly the same place it began this trek.

Photo: Cover Page from No Petro-Chemical Storage Tanks on Our West Bank–A Compendium of Citizen Concerns

“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