Authors Forum with All Things Africatown
Join Mobile Museum of Art and All Things Africatown for an authors forum centered on the Clotilda story, an intimate, thought-provoking gathering that brings history to life through storytelling, dialogue, and community reflection. The forum features authors, historians, and cultural bearers who explore the legacy of the Clotilda — the last known ship to bring Africans to the United States — and the founding of Africatown by its survivors. Through readings, moderated conversations, and audience engagement, participants examine themes of resilience, memory, identity, and justice, connecting past experiences to present-day conversations about heritage and healing. The space encourages learning, honoring ancestors, and empowering communities by ensuring the Clotilda story is preserved, shared, and passed on to future generations.
We also invite you to visit two compelling exhibitions currently on view at MMoA: JUAN LOGAN: Without Stopping and Vuzumazulu: The Black Solarium, An Abantu Cultural Expose by Abaddon “Apollo” Ben Yakongo. These exhibitions engage themes of history, identity, and cultural memory that resonate deeply with the forum’s focus and will be on view through the end of this month.
RSVP IS REQUIRED FOR THIS EVENT AND CAN BE FILLED OUT IN THE FORM BELOW
Friday, February 6
9:30 – 1 pm
Presented in Collaboration with
Our Speakers
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Dr. Kern Michael Jackson
Dr. Kern Michael Jackson was raised in Washington, DC, but his roots are off “Davis Avenue” and “downtown the Bay!” Dr. Jackson serves as Director of the African American Studies Program and Associate Professor of English at the University of South Alabama. He is the former curator of minority history at the Museum of Mobile and coordinated the City of Mobile’s Tricentennial Celebration Video Oral History Project, preserving stories central to the African American experience. Most recently, Dr. Jackson co-wrote and co-produced the international, award-winning documentary Descendant, now streaming on Netflix—continuing his commitment to telling the truths, histories, and sacred stories of Black communities.
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Dr. Deborah G. Plant
Dr. Deborah G. Plant is an African American Literature and Africana Studies independent scholar and literary critic specializing in the life and works of Zora Neale Hurston. She is the editor of The Life of Herod the Great (2025) and the New York Times bestselling Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” (2018), as well as the author of Zora Neale Hurston: A Biography of the Spirit, Every Tub Must Sit on Its Own Bottom, Alice Walker: A Woman for Our Times, and Of Greed and Glory: In Pursuit of Freedom for All. Dr. Plant formerly chaired the University of South Florida’s Department of Africana Studies and brings decades of scholarship that illuminate Black life, memory, and resistance.
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Dr. Hannah Durkin
Dr. Hannah Durkin is a leading researcher of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Black Atlantic history and culture, with specialist expertise in transatlantic slavery and its legacies. She is the author of The Survivors of the Clotilda: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the American Slave Trade (Amistad), which won the Wolfson History Prize and was named one of Amazon’s Best History Books of 2024, one of the Washington Post’s “50 Notable Works of Nonfiction from 2024,” and a New Yorker recommended book of 2024. Her work powerfully restores the voices and experiences of the Clotilda survivors and their descendants.
RSVP for Authors Forum
Friday, February 6
9:30 am - 1 pm
If you have questions or concerns, please call the Africatown Heritage House at (251) 680-1688 or email Joycelyn Davis.