CHESS - Clean Healthy Educated Safe & Sustainable

03/31/2025

This Saturday, April 5 from 9:30am until 11:15am, the Africatown's historic Lewis Quarters neighborhood will unveil its first historic marker. Park at Blooming Grove Baptist Church and join the community in celebrating this momentous occasion.

After, the Africatown Heritage House will open from 11:30am for an hour and a special performance of Karen Ann Lewis portraying Zora Neale Hurston.

At 1:30pm, the monthly Africatown Clotilda Boat Tour will depart from the Outlaw Convention Center on the Mobile River downtown - registration is required.

06/26/2024

The Clotilda Descendants Association's annual Landing Event, an observation of their ancestors' arrival from Africa in enslavement aboard the Clotilda on July 8, 1860, will be conducted July 5-7. All event details are available at their website: www.TheClotildaStory.com

Join us for this year's Landing Event Weekend from Friday, July 5 to Sunday, July 7 in Mobile, Alabama! The Landing Event is a series of activities celebrating and commemorating the history of the Clotilda survivors and their descendants. All listed events are free and open to the public.

- **Friday, July 5, 2-4 PM**: Family & Friends Meet & Greet at the Africatown Heritage House

- **Saturday, July 6, 8-9 AM**: Laying of the Wreath Landing Event Ceremony under the Africatown Bridge

- **Sunday, July 7, 10:45 AM**: Descendants & Friends Worship Service at Union Baptist Missionary Church

06/05/2024

The Africatown Connections Blueway is a treasure trove network of already existing but relatively inaccessible gorgeous waterfront and growth opportunities for Africatown residents and the whole region. Read more about it!

We want the community to understand how they can benefit from the Blueway, how they can appreciate the history and how their ancestors valued the waterways there, and how it connected all of the people up and down. - Leavie King, current Chairman of the Africatown Heritage Preservation Foundation. Read more about Africa Connections Blueway in the full CURRENTS article https://mobilebaykeeper.org/blog/take-me-to-the-river-the-africatown-connections-blueway/

02/02/2024

Time to SHOW UP for Chin Street! This upcoming Monday!

A new air pollution permit from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) for Hosea O Weaver's Africatown asphalt business will allow it to continue to operate like the last 25 years haven't happened, but HO Weaver asphalt has dumped on its neighbors TOO MUCH.

This is a critical opportunity for residents, stakeholders, and advocates to SPEAK UP and get ON RECORD about the impacts that HO Weaver's Africatown asphalt facility has had on the neighborhood, its assets like the historic cemetery & welcome center, and its visitors.

Monday, February 5, 2024

Robert Hope Community Center
850 Edwards St, Plateau, Africatown 36610

5-6:30pm - ADEM Availability Session (ADEM will be present to answer questions and talk about their programs)

6:30-8pm - ADEM's Pollution Permit Public Hearing for HO Weaver

QUICK GLANCE:
• This Public Hearing is happening because WE PROVED that for the past 25 years HO Weaver has done business under the WRONG POLLUTION PERMIT

• HO Weaver's Africatown asphalt plant was heavily protested when it was constructed due to its pollution impacts & lack of local permits

• HO Weaver's pollution prevention equipment has malfunctioned repeatedly in the last few years for long periods without serious consequence from ADEM

• ADEM shouldn't grant a new permit to HO Weaver without direct EPA oversight and a new full site inspection - WE HAVE LOST TRUST IN ADEM

For more info, visit the MEJAC blog here:
https://www.mejacoalition.org/2024/02/02/howeaverpublichearing/

01/25/2024

Tomorrow night! If you can't attend in person, there will be a virtual engagement option - Zoom/call-in details in the original post.

The second Railroad Expansion Community Meeting will be hosted this Thursday, January 25 from 5:30-7:30pm at the Robert L. Hope Community Center in Plateau, Africatown.

This meeting will serve to gather questions from concerned residents, stakeholders, and advocates that will be presented to the project management team - the Alabama State Port Authority, Volkert, CSX, and the Federal Railroad Administration.

Over 90 people attended the last meeting, and we are looking forward to keeping up the momentum.

If you are unable to attend in person to contribute, you may attend virtually using the following Zoom credentials:

Join Zoom Meeting via Computer or Smart Phone:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81504019873?pwd=UDl6VHFTMEUwV2padVhnTHI0cVVNZz09

Or Dial In:
Call: (346) 248-7799
Meeting ID: 815 0401 9873
Passcode: 36610

For more information about the project, please visit the MEJAC blog and read our "Key Concerns about the Port of Mobile’s Africatown Railyard Expansion Project" brief:
https://www.mejacoalition.org/2023/12/30/africatownrailyardexpansionconcerns/

01/02/2024

Please share widely. We gotta get the word out about how this project will affect Africatown.

MEJAC is deeply concerned about the Alabama State Port Authority's "Chickasaw Railroad Lead Line" project, which is contained entirely within Mobile's Africatown Planning Area.

Noise, visual blight, and worsening air pollution top the physical and public health concerns.

The lopsided community engagement strategy and how this project could possibly fit within the Biden Administration's Justice40 Initiative and its Environmental Justice goals just add to the concerns.

Furthermore, a critically flawed and fundamentally unacceptable archeological survey for the Africatown railyard expansion project underscore the severity of outrage many feel.

Africatown organizations will host a community meeting to discuss all these concerns with the project on Thursday, January 4 from 5:30-7:30pm at the Robert L. Hope Community Center in Plateau, Africatown.

To help residents, stakeholders, and advocates delve deeper into these concerns, MEJAC and partners have prepared a "Key Concerns about the Port of Mobile’s Africatown Railyard Expansion Project" brief that anyone can read on the MEJAC blog here:
https://www.mejacoalition.org/2023/12/30/africatownrailyardexpansionconcerns/

Africatown Heritage Preservation Foundation
Yorktown Missionary Baptist Church
First Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church
CHESS - Clean Healthy Educated Safe & Sustainable
Mobile County Training School - MCTS Alumni Association

11/02/2023

2nd Annual Africatown Lantern Walk taking place November 3rd-5th, 2023. Details below.

06/30/2023

Very proud, we are!

11/17/2022

Saturday 3-5pm. Join us in Africatown. All are welcome!

Community members and several local organizations will celebrate Afriactown's founders' stories during the Inaugural Africatown Lantern Walk on Saturday, November 19. At a time when Africatown has captured global attention, organizers are looking to restart a tradition that has not occurred in the community since 1952.

Starting at the Mobile County Training School, the walk will take participants through a route that includes many of the community's historic churches and ends at the Africatown Cemetery. The Lantern Walk is intended to bring public awareness to Africatown's history while connecting young people today to its past and its ancestors.

The Africatown Lantern Walk is being hosted by the Mobile County Training School Alumni Association in collaboration with Clean Healthy Educated, Safe, Sustainable (C.H.E.S.S), the Churches of Africatown, the African American Redress Network, the International Center for Transitional Justice, the Department of Landscape Architecture at Mississippi State University, the Southern Environmental Center at Birmingham-Southern College, Mobile County and the City of Mobile. This free public event is scheduled from 3 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, November 19. You can find more information about the Africatown Lantern Walk and the events leading up to it by visiting http://www.mctswhippets.org/mcts-lantern-walk/

10/17/2022

Descendant, an acclaimed new documentary about the Clotilda slave ship and the Africatown community, will be showing for one night only at the Seanger Theater. Tickets are free, but you must register ahead of time to enter, and TICKETS WILL GO VERY FAST, so if you want one, please don't hesitate.

All tickets are general admission.

The film will also be available at the Crescent Theater on Dauphin Street downtown starting October 23.

Gala on Saturday follows start of Netflix streaming on Friday