“Those who love us never leave us alone with our grief. At the moment they show us our wound, they reveal they have the medicine.”
- Alice Walker
JUSTICE FOR THE 110
One day in 1859, while gambling, known slave-trader, businessman, and landowner, Timothy Meaher made a bet of approximately $1,000 that he could smuggle Africans as slaves into the United States without being caught. He partnered with Captain William Foster, who used his ship, the Clotilda, and sponsored the voyage.
RECONCILIATION & REPARATIONS
From 1860 to 1865, most of the captives worked as slaves on the plantations of those men. After learning of their freedom in 1865, they approached Timothy Meaher in an attempt to purchase their way back to Africa. He kept raising the fare, and they never accumulated enough money to pay for their voyage. They asked Timothy Meaher to give them land as reparations, but he declined.
DREAMS FOR AFRICATOWN
In the Summer of 2021, descendants of Timothy Meaher sold a former credit union building to the city (Mobile) for $50,000. This building, located in the heart of Africatown, was hoped to serve a food bank as a part of a community revitalization initiative. And at the time of the building being sold, the Meaher family stated that they “could not think of a better way to give back to the community”.
“That spirit of my Ancestors, that spirit lives in me.”
- Jeremy Ellis
