African Town by Irene Latham and Charles Waters
Reviewed by: Melissa Friedlund, Reference Specialist
Genre: Historical Fiction
Suggested Age: Teen, Adult
What is the book about? In 1860, the importation of enslaved people into the United States had been illegal for decades. However, that year 110 men, women, and children were bought and smuggled from Africa to Alabama. They were hidden in swampland and secretly divided up to work on plantations. After the Civil War, these newly-freed people established a community of their own: Africatown, USA (near Mobile, Alabama). Originally hoping to buy passage back to their homelands, they created a unique society for that time and place, the South in the late 19th century. This book tells their story in fourteen distinct voices, including that of the ship they sailed on through the Middle Passage, the Clotilda.
My Review: I listened to the audiobook version of this book and found it to be very engaging and informative. These people who remembered their lives in Africa and knew who their ancestral people were had a unique frame of reference when it comes to slavery and the post-Civil War era in the United States. I liked how the different perspectives were examined and portrayed throughout the story. Since this is historical fiction, there are some parts of the story that were altered for a more cohesive narrative. Those changes are detailed in an appendix at the end, which I found to be a very conscientious choice for the authors to make.
Three Words That Describe This Book: Poignant, Heartbreaking, Compelling
Give This a Try if You Like… Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 edited by Ibram X. Kendi, The Last Slave Ship by Ben Raines
Rating: 5/5
