Long before a piece of the Clotilda was discovered in 2019, and well before the Heritage House opened its doors in 2023, the people of Africatown held fast to a vision — a permanent place to greet the world and share their story.

After decades of dreaming, planning, and making do with a temporary mobile unit, that vision is finally becoming reality. Soon, Africatown will greet visitors with a modern, $5.1 million Welcome Center that will serve as a first-stop reference point for a community rooted in resilience, marked by tragedy, and rich in cultural heritage.

“We have a story to tell, and an obligation to tell that story,” said Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson at the groundbreaking ceremony Monday that launched the year-long construction project.

BP money

Funded entirely through BP oil spill recovery dollars, the new center will stand as both a gateway and a testament to the endurance, memory, and the power of telling the story of a community founded after the Civil War by 110 enslaved Africans.

The money to build the Welcome Center is coming from funds collected from companies involved in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster under the federal RESTORE Act.

The project had been hung up over bureaucratic hurdles related to the RESTORE Act process, officials have long said. But those complications appear to be in the past, with the project now underway.

“We took the tragedy of the BP oil spill and we are here today with a triumph of this welcome center,” Mobile County Commissioner Merceria Ludgood said.

She acknowledged the length it took to get the project from a plan and a concept to reality.

“The lesson we ought to learn from this is to be encouraged and steadfast in this work that even when it gets hard, you have to persevere,” Ludgood said. “I know there are some who said it would never happen. But there were reasons it slowed down. The lesson I learned from government is how long stuff takes (to happen).”

Telling a story

The Welcome Center, when completed, will be located across from the Old Plateau Cemetery adjacent to Bay Branch Road at the foot of the Africatown USA Bridge.

It will serve as a gathering spot for visitors to learn more about the Africatown community, its history and enduring struggles as well as the discovery of the hull of the Clotilda that has reignited its renaissance.

“This is such a special place, a special site,” said Councilman William Carroll. “We have a place where people not from here can come and see the story and be welcomed by a community that has multiple places where they can learn about the Africans who were brought here.”

The story has gotten plenty of retelling in recent years as Africatown has become an anchor for Mobile’s heritage tourism.

The Clotilda arrived to the Mobile Bay in 1860 with 110 African slaves on board. The ship’s arrival came 52 years after the transatlantic slave trade had been outlawed.

The vessel, a wooden schooner, was the last known slave ship from African to venture into the United States. Its owner, Timothy Meaher, had the ship burned after that last voyage.

Much of the ship’s remains are still stuck in the muddy Mobile River. A task force led by the Alabama Historical Commission reported last year that the ship was too “broken” and decayed to be extracted from the water.

After the Civil War, the ship’s survivors settled in the Africatown community that is approximately six miles north of downtown Mobile. The community has, for generations, taken on a distinct flavor of its own and one rich with African culture and traditions.

Community boost

However, the community has faced years of deterioration and blight. But a host of community organizations have taken the lead to boost its attractiveness while lobbying for public support to fix up houses and build up community resources. For instance, Africatown Hall opened last year to serve a dual purpose as a food bank and as the home to the Africatown Redevelopment Corp. (ARC).

Cleon Jones, a representative with the Africatown Community Development Corporation and a member of the New York Mets Hall of Fame, credited the work of the varying groups within the community, even if some of them have had differences over the community’s vision.

“Each and every morning, I get up and worry about this community being marginalized,” Jones said. “We can’t have that. We want people from all walks of life. Whatever you create, you should be able to live in this community if you want to.”

Jones, who was an outfielder on the 1969 “Miracle” Mets world championships squad, has spent much of his post-playing years as an advocate for Africatown, and can often be spotted mowing the streets within the community.

“I’m full of joy,” said Jones, 82, who began playing baseball as a youth attending Mobile County Training School in Africatown before evolving into a Major League Baseball All-Star with the Mets. “We are working together, hopefully, for the same thing in moving this community forward.”