By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Staff Writer
tmcqueen@afro.com
Across America, there are small towns and regions where Black history and culture are embedded into the community. What destinations should you add to the itinerary this summer? Some of those locations include New Bedford, Mass., Eatonville, Fla. and Africatown, Ala.
New Bedford, Mass.
The New Bedford Whaling Museum is helping the Cape Verdean community celebrate 50 years of independence with the opening of two new exhibits in June, “Claridade: Cape Verdean Identity in Contemporary Art” and “Morabeza: Cape Verdean Community in the South Coast.”
“New Bedford became the first point of arrival for the majority of Cape Verdeans emigrating from the islands to the United States starting in the 1870s, and that picked up into the 1920s,” said Naomi Slipp, Douglas and Cynthia Crocker Endowed chair for the chief curator and the director of Museum Learning at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. “We continue to have a pretty steady stream of Cape Verdean immigrants who come to New Bedford and settle here because of the multi-generational pathways across the diaspora.”
Cabo Verde is an island country in Africa that has a complicated history of racial and ethnic identities leading to an array of people today with different backgrounds identifying as Cape Verdean.
Slipp said the museum has a high school apprentice program where over 40 percent of participants identify as Cape Verdean.
Claridade is inspired by the Cape Verdean literary review, which focused on identity and cultural clarity from 1936 to 1960 via sculpture, mixed media, painting, poetry and a video installation. Morabeza highlights the history and experiences of the Cape Verdean community in New England through photographs, oral histories and cultural artifacts.
New Bedford also has an abolitionist past, making it a major stop on the Underground railroad, welcoming in a variety of immigrants looking to start a new and safe life in the U.S.
“New Bedford continues to be identified as a gateway city, as a place for immigrants arriving to the United States,” said Slipp. “It’s a part of what makes New Bedford special.”
Eatonville, Fla.
Eatonville, Fla. is the oldest Black Incorporated municipality in the U.S., according to the Zinn Education Project, a collaboration amongst Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change to promote the “people’s teaching” in schools. The town was incorporated in 1887, becoming the first municipality to be created by freedmen.
In Eatonville, Fla. Black Americans were able to be self-governing and free to live their lives and be themselves.
“Eatonville is a quintessential American town,” said N. Y. Nathiri, executive director of the Association to Preserve Eatonville Community, in a short documentary by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), a philanthropy organization. “It has its own special uniqueness in terms of character and spirit.”
This town also holds the rich history of being the hometown of renowned novelist, folklorist Zora Neale Hurston. She is best known for her novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
“The community has reduced crime, brought in new businesses and new stores,” said Alvin Moore, former councilmember of Eatonville, Fla. in the RWJF short documentary. “It’s changed so much that you can see it in people’s hearts and their actions and the way that they live.”
Attractions in Eatonville, Fla. today include, the Zora Neale Hurston Museum, the Moseley House Museum, the St. Lawrence AME Church, the Zora’s Cosmo Trail and the annual ZORA! Festival where visitors can enjoy various performances, interactive art and more.
Africatown, Ala.
Africatown, Ala. is a community in Mobile, Ala. that was created by survivors of the last journey taken by enslaved Africans to the “New World” as a part of the transatlantic slave trade. It is also the only American neighborhood created by West Africans who had survived the Middle Passage, the slave trade system.
Africatown remained a strong, self-governed community for decades–with its own churches, schools and stores, but when the region was annexed into the City of Mobile in 1960, things started to change. Though the city is not as vibrant as it once was, its African-descendant culture and the resilience of the community that still reside there shines through.
Today, tourists can stop by the Africatown Heritage House where they can dive into the rich history of Africatown and the Clotilda, the last known slave ship sailed into the U.S. They host a variety of events throughout the year for residents and visitors to engage in, including lectures on the Black experience and culture festivals with live performances and food trucks.
The Africatown Heritage House won best museum opening from the National Geographic in 2023.
Visitors can also travel to the Union Baptist Church, a cornerstone of the community, and the Old Plateau Cemetery (Africatown Graveyard), where many of the enslaved Africans were buried.
Slipp emphasized the importance of towns and regions through the U.S. honoring the Black history of the land, communities they live in.
“Folks who say that it is not important to tell the story about what makes us different or that it’s not something to celebrate are coming from a pretty extreme place of privilege,” said Slipp. “This belief that we’re better off seeing all of ourselves as the same, erases the opportunities to value what each of us brings to the conversation. It’s important to hear and learn about people’s experiences in order to understand how to also come together more authentically.”
Great Job Tashi McQueen AFRO Staff Writer & the Team @ AFRO American Newspapers Source link for sharing this story.
