Africatown HPF Donations

What current or upcoming initiatives/work/goals would donations support? 

Portfolio

Africatown Connections Blueway

Since 2016, Mobile County Training School Alumni Association has been highly successful at convening communities in the Africatown area in a dialogue about preserving the area’s rich history and natural resources. Supported by the National Park Service (NPS) – Rivers, Trails & Conservation Assistance Program (RTCA) and many other organizations, the project has grown into a multi-jurisdictional planning effort for an international tourist attraction which will now be coordinated by the AHPF. The Africatown Connections Blueway will be composed of 14 points of interest that highlight natural, historical or cultural themes along a 10+ mile route.  The route connects four jurisdictions and three bodies of water including Three Mile Creek, Mobile River and Chickasaw Creek.  The jurisdictions include:  City of Mobile, City of Prichard, City of Chickasaw and Mobile County.

Africatown Curriculum for Education

Guardians of Heritage is an African-centered youth leadership and legacy collaborative, led by Georgia State University, as well as several other colleges and universities. This project uses Black scholarship, cultural expression, traditions of resistance, including maroonage and youth activism, as well as community history and heritage knowledge as resources to build and sustain transformative youth power, leadership, agency and activism. Africatown is one of seven communities actively participating in this collaborative.

Africatown Eco-Garden

Utilizing an interagency approach to promote a comprehensive response to food insecurity in Africatown, project partners seek to assess strengths, establish linkages, identify resources, and create a community-driven, nature-centered, and multi-system Africatown Eco-Garden Plan that improves the self-reliance of Africatown’s residents over their food needs. 

Africatown Housing Revitalization Initiative

AHPF is working on numerous fronts to address housing issues in Africatown including working with internationally known SBP towards rehabilitation of homes in Africatown and working with Alabama State leadership in establishing legislation that would focus on housing restoration for Africatown. Five homes have been reroofed and others are in need. AHPF also seeks support to save homes from auctions due to property tax liens and prevent land theft.

AHPF Environmental, Climate and Water Justice Initiatives

The Africatown community, located along the Mobile bay waterways, has been subjected to environmental, water and air pollution among other injustices for decades. A combination of the siting of industrial plants, poor planning, and governmental neglect has resulted in significant environmental degradation. A vicious cycle of poorly regulated industry, brain drain, property abandonment, and cultural amnesia threatens to destroy Africatown. Three of the top 5 Industrial Polluting Industries in Mobile County, according to the federal government's monthly TRI report, are located in Africatown. In 1991, the Alabama Department of Transportation built a four-lane bridge, called the Cochrane-Africatown USA bridge, that cuts right through the heart of Africatown. It not only eliminated the communities businesses in its downtown area, but also wiped out houses that served as a buffer between the highway and cemetery and now water. AHPF seeks to address continued climate and environmental challenges, infrastructure racism /apartheid and address growing Africatown and Prichard Water and Sewer problems.

Africatown Plateau Historic Cemetery

The Africatown Heritage Preservation Foundation is working with two cemetery committees to help develop a strategic action and funding plan to address ongoing maintenance and improvements to the Africatown Plateau Historic Cemetery where Africatown founders, residents and descendants, and a buffalo soldier rest. 

UNESCO Middle Passage Ceremonies & Port Markers Project (MPCPMP) 

A team of project partners has been working with MPCPMP Executive Director, Ann Chinn, since 2018 in identifying a location to commemorate the slave ship Clotilda. This project is part of commemorating the nearly 12 million Africans involved in the Middle Passage of the transatlantic human trade. 

Youth Scuba Dive & Swim Program

Supported and collaboratively led by internationally known Diving with a Purpose and The Smithsonian’s Slave Wrecks Project, this project will engage local youth (12yrs to 18yrs of age) in educational water activities towards their eventual involvement in the dive research of the slave ship Clotilda.

General funds are also needed to build a strong infrastructure for AHPF and create a Legal Defense Fund to protect the interests of Africatown.

Thank you for your donations!

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What's 1-3 big successes you'd like to share with the audience visiting the website?

- AHPF will lead the implementation and coordination of the Africatown Connections   

  Blueway project started in 2016 by the Mobile County Training School Alumni 

  Association with support by the National Park Service (NPS) – Rivers, Trails &  

  Conservation Assistance Program (RTCA) and many other organizations.

- AHPF supported efforts for Africatown to be included in the World Monuments Fund 

  (WMF) 2022 World Monuments Watch. This honor will bring support to ensure 

   indigenous, community-led preservation and storytelling-including narratives and about 

   the 110 enslaved Africans who founded Africatown on the last ship Clotilda, are globally 

   shared. Narratives of environmental justice and the imagined equitable benefits of 

   cultural tourism for the community and places that make Africatown so significant on both 

   sides of the Atlantic.

- AHPF recently hired and introduced to a local, national, and global audience, its first  

  Executive Director.