The A-List: What to Watch and Read this Black History Month

Alabama has an incredibly rich history, not least of which as the birthplace of the civil rights movement that overturned the status quo of unspeakable bigotry, segregation, and hate in the Jim Crow South. And lately, Mobile has garnered international attention for the discovery of the slave ship Clotilda with renewed interest in Africatown, the once-thriving settlement established by Clotilda survivors. Here are some of our top picks— books and films exploring the legacy of resilience and hope in the face of adversity—that cast new light on our common home.

Birmingham native and Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, Imani Perry uses personal anecdotes and the historical record to explore the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow in her new book South to America A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation. Listen to her interview on Alabama Public Radio here.

Fairhope resident Ben Raines follows up his celebrated account of Alabama biodiversity, Saving America’s Amazon: The Threat to the Nation’s Most Biodiverse River System with an equally powerful account of the quest for the Clotilda, the last illegal transport of human cargo to the U.S. in The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning,

Premiering February 7, 2022 and available for streaming on Hulu and Disney + thereafter, National Geographic’s documentary about the discovery of the intact, sunken slave ship Clotilda in the Mobile River explores the technological challenges of wreckage recovery as well as the broader social and historical significance of the wreck for Africatown residents and their unique place in U.S. history as the only descendants of formerly enslaved Africans with direct cultural continuity with their ancestors.

Director Margaret Brown’s documentary Descendants focuses on the community of Africatown, their history, and the legacy of environmental racism that has decimated a community whose unique historical journey is only now beginning to be celebrated by the nation and the world. Descendants will stream in Netflix at an unknown time in the near future, so keep an eye out!