Responsible Research Practices with Environmental Justice Communities: Africatown Community-driven History

In 1860, the last ship of enslaved people landed on the shore of Mobile Bay. After the end of the Civil War, these survivors of the Middle Passage bought land on the plateau above the river, built homes and a school, and called this place Africantown. Africatown was a sanctuary for Black Americans throughout Reconstruction and Jim Crow. However, like many historic Black towns along the Gulf Coast, Africatown has been surrounded by polluting industries located on former plantation grounds. Present and avoidable threats include ongoing pollution, rezoning of residential areas to heavy industry, and increased truck traffic diverted from a new toll bridge. In the wake of the 2019 discovery of the slaveship Clotilda, Africatown has attracted international attention through the award-winning 2022 documentary Descendant.

Black descendant communities like Africatown are knowledge keepers, maintaining stories, ceremonies, and practices. Ms. Joycelyn Davis, a Clotilda Descendant, has been engaged in a lifelong project to tell Africatown’s story and support the community’s ability to survive and thrive. Dr. Kern Jackson, a trained oral historian, has been documenting oral traditions in the community since his arrival at the University of South Alabama. Students in Professor Jay Fiskio’s Environmental Studies courses first began partnering with Africatown in 2014, and since then the community has warmly welcomed generations of Oberlin students. Community historians have mentored student researchers and invited students to learn the history of Africatown through oral history interviews. Currently, Dr. Jackson is co-PI on an NSF grant focused on responsible research with environmental justice communities with faculty from Oberlin and Tennessee State University, and Ms. Davis and Dr. Jackson are co-PIs with Professor Fiskio on an application to the Mellon Foundation for environmental justice studies with faculty from Pennsylvania State University.

Panelists: Jay Fiskio Professor and Director of Environmental Studies, Chair of Food Studies, Oberlin College; Ms. Joycelyn Davis, co-founder and Vice-President of the Clotilda Descendants Association and organizer of the Spirit of Our Ancestors Festival; Dr. Kern Jackson, co-writer and co-producer of the documentary film Descendant, Associate Professor & Director of the African American Studies Program, University of South Alabama; and Kai Vera Menafee, a senior at Oberlin College majoring in Africana Studies and Dance, with a minor in Environmental Studies and concentration in Education, will talk about some of the many vectors of their longstanding and iterative community-based research and teaching collaborations. Dr. Anu Ramaswami, Sanjay Swani ’87 Professor of India Studies, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, and the High Meadows Environmental Institute will provide commentary on the panel.

Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship | View More Events

Contact the organizers