New Year. New reviews. Alabama Writers’ Forum has just posted my review of poet Theodore Haddin’s new poetry, The Pendulum Moves Off. Check it out along with other new reviews.
New Poetry for the New Year
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Author Archives: gedwardjourney
Africatown
The Clotilda, the last known ship to illegally transport kidnapped and enslaved Africans to American shores, was set afire just above Mobile Bay in 1860. Since the African trans-Atlantic slave trade had been outlawed since 1808, the ship was destroyed so it could not be used as evidence of the illegal crossing. The Africans onboard had been transferred to a riverboat before the abandoned schooner was burned and scuttled. Despite this, the perpetrators of the crime were boastful about the activity, which had been undertaken as part of a bet, and the story of the Clotilda was well-known in the area. The story became legend and, because of the lack of evidence, some considered it a myth.
The Civil War followed and some of the Africans from the Clotilda, who were technically free at the war’s conclusion, eventually founded Africatown on the west bank of the Mobile River. Africatown is distinctive for being founded by Africans who had recently arrived on American shores and maintained their customs, language, and traditions in the running of the community. The African natives were, on occasion, denigrated by the descendants of earlier Africans who had spent their entire lives in America.
Africatown still survives and descendants of the founders remain active there. The community, however, was split by a highway, hemmed in, and poisoned by industrial pollution, and now has about 2,000 residents.
Meanwhile, the remains of the Clotilda lay at the bottom of the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta. Ben Raines, an Alabama environmentalist and journalist with keen knowledge of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, organized expeditions to find the remains of the Clotilda in an area that has the remains of a number of ship wrecks. In 2019, the Alabama Historical Commission confirmed that the remains found by a Raines expedition were those of the Clotilda. After almost 160 years in the waters, some of the ship is still partially intact. There is ongoing research into how best to preserve what is left. Fascinating documentation of the history of the Clotilda and its recent discovery may be found in The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning (Simon and Schuster, 2022) by Ben Raines.
Due in part to Raines’s discovery and to ongoing efforts by Africatown residents and descendants, the Africatown community is attracting attention once again and revitalization plans are in the works. The History Museum of Mobile has opened a fourth space, the Africatown Heritage House, in the community. “Clotilda: The Exhibition” is currently on display at the Heritage House (www.clotilda.com).
I traveled to Africatown for the first time recently. I went to see the powerful exhibit which presents timelines, documentation, and artifacts from the life of the founders of the community. Included are artifacts of their captivity, trans-Atlantic crossing, American enslavement, founding of the community, and a hopeful vision for the future. Among the soundscapes of the exhibit is the sound of water. The sound of lapping waters permeates the exhibition, always there, like the treacherous waters of the Atlantic crossing and the brackish Delta waters that preserved the evidence of the Clotilda and its cargo. The remains of the Clotilda itself are not that far away, still at rest in the Mobile River.
Oluale Kazoola, later known as “Cudjoe Lewis,” was an original inhabitant and landowner of Africatown. It was thought that he was the last living survivor of the captives of the Clotilda, but two other survivors were later located. Writer Zora Neale Hurston spent time in Africatown and with Kazoola, and recorded and filmed him. Her manuscript, Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” documenting her conversations with Kazoola, was finally published in 2018. Snippets of Kazoola’s story, in his own words, are interspersed throughout the exhibition with the audio guide that each visitor carries through the rooms.
After leaving the Heritage House exhibit, a drive around Africatown gives evidence of what is being done, what still needs to be done. Among the houses – vintage or newer, abandoned or proudly occupied, unkempt or carefully maintained, there were two that stood out for me. One was a tiny shotgun house, one of my favorite vernacular styles, and the other was boldly adorned with an image of the African continent against a red, black, and green field. Both appealed to my inner-William Christenberry. 
Back at the noisy highway that transects Africatown stands the community’s spiritual center, Union Missionary Baptist Church, with a bust of Kazoola mounted in front. Across the highway, not exempt from the clamor of factory traffic, is the peaceful Africatown cemetery with remains of the original settlers and their descendants. The site of an upcoming Africatown Welcome Center is just across the road. 
I knew much of the story of Africatown and the Clotilda from readings and documentaries, but it is an inspiration to actually be in Africatown, the home of such courage. This community, forged by people forcibly removed from their home, illustrates the power and conviction to create a new home in an often hostile foreign land. The community, the Africatown Heritage House, the church, and the burial ground remain as symbols and reminders of an unfaltering spirit. 
Ghosts of Evenings Past
My friends Russell and Janet died recently. But that’s not what this is about. It’s about what we do in life and how we’re remembered by those who know us.
I met Janet Gray and Russell Luke, a couple of theatre professionals, when I took a job at a theatre in Jackson, Mississippi. They were a delightful couple. Janet was lovely and intense, and Russell reminded me of Tennessee Williams, whose plays he loved. He also shared my affinity for Eugene Walter. By the time I moved to Jackson, Janet had already left and was working as a costume designer and professor at a university in South Carolina.
My time in Jackson was brief. Russell, a director and stage manager, moved on to South Carolina to teach and be with Janet. I moved on to a gig at Alabama Shakespeare Festival. In those days, Alabama Shakespeare Festival was a repertory theatre and I would host Janet and Russell when they arrived for a few days each summer to catch the rep.
We also ran into each other every March at the Southeastern Theatre Conference (SETC) convention. It was held in a different city each year and we usually managed at least one meal together. Over time, we formalized our annual meal to a dinner on Saturday, the last night of the convention, finding just the right combination of menu and ambiance in a variety of Southern cities.
Kitty and Patty, my friends from graduate school, also attended the theatre conference annually, representing their college in Florida. We quickly became a group of five and our Saturday night dinners became a cherished tradition that eventually – for me, at least – superseded the week’s other activities.
At each of these meals, Russell would quietly excuse himself toward dinner’s end. He would just as quietly return. A few minutes later, a server would arrive with a tray of five Brandy Alexanders for the table. This was Russell’s annual parting gesture for the group. The evening ended with a toast and a vow to reconvene a year later in another city.
Twice during those years, the convention was held in Mobile. On Saturday night, the five of us piled into my car and headed across Mobile Bay to the Eastern Shore. The first of our Eastern Shore dinners was at the Wash House, a restaurant in Point Clear. The by-now requisite tray of Brandy Alexanders appeared to end the evening.
This tradition went on for years. The last time the five of us gathered together was at the convention in Louisville in 2020. Janet had some health problems, but the prognoses seemed promising. It was a lovely, relaxing evening, culminating in a tray of Brandy Alexanders and a promise to do it again in Memphis in 2021.
The next week, everything shut down for COVID-19.
During the pandemic, there was no 2021 convention. I kept up with Russell about Janet’s health problems. There were challenges but Russell always assured me that they were doing “okay.”
In March 2022, SETC finally had its on-site Memphis convention. Kitty and Patty were unable to come and our group of five became three. I had retired and was rotating off the SETC magazine editorial board and had announced that 2022 would be my final SETC. At the restaurant on Saturday night, Russell did his usual disappearing act, Brandy Alexanders arrived, and we toasted our missing friends, Kitty and Patty. As the dessert course wound down, Russell said he felt like we should order one more round in honor of my last SETC.
After that final SETC, Janet began to have more serious health problems. Russell was dealing with health issues, too, although he never said much about it. In our final communication, in late-spring 2023, Russell said they were preparing to go to a reception in honor of Janet’s retirement and that things were going “as well as can be expected.” SETC will be in Mobile in 2024 and Russell said that he and Janet were discussing coming down if they were able. Since I wouldn’t be attending, he suggested I come down anyway and we could go to the Eastern Shore for dinner on Saturday night. I promised to think about it.
While running errands on November 14, I received word that Russell had died that day and that Janet had preceded him in death on October 18.
When I notified Kitty and Patty, Kitty had the perfect remembrance:
Our Saturday nights at SETC were always so special. Their twinkling wicked wits, dry humor, and genuine warmth made them such good company. I hope they are together teasing, needling and ribbing one another at this very moment. I’ll picture them that way for sure.
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I am in Point Clear this week. I had dinner at the Wash House and ordered a piece of pecan pie and a Brandy Alexander for dessert. Two ladies at a table across from me asked what I was having. The Wash House pecan pie needed no explanation, but I explained that the Brandy Alexander was in honor of a couple of friends who had recently passed away, that we always ended our meals together with a Brandy Alexander and that one of those special meals had been at the Wash House.
“What were their names?” asked one of the ladies. When I told their names, the ladies raised their glasses in unison.
“Here’s to Janet and Russell,” they said. Janet and Russell would be pleased.
AL225: December 2023
On my annual December retreat to the Grand Hotel in Point Clear on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay, I leave the interstate at the Stockton exit just before the interstate crosses the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta. That exit feeds onto Alabama Route 225 and runs about twenty miles through coastal plain from Stockton to Spanish Fort.
Over the years, that short stretch of Baldwin County road has become one of my favorite roads to drive. There’s nothing spectacular going on, and that’s the point. For the first few miles, the road runs through pine forests and the distinctive December low angle light brushes the trees with a graceful autumnal glow. The fact that you are now “below the Salt Line” is unmistakable. Even on a chilly day, I must roll down the window to catch the air. The road frequently crosses small streams, creeks, and branches and glimpses of water shine through the trees. I frequently feel my body relax. I exhale. 
Houses are sparse at first, and the landscape is dotted with mobile homes, ancient farmsteads, and the occasional new construction. Small business districts pop up occasionally and I could swear I spotted two Dollar General stores within a mile of each other. There’s one traffic light at a crossroads.
On my most recent trip, I decided to turn off the main road to see some of the boat launches on the nearby Tensaw River. A short drive on a narrow road on a slow nippy day and suddenly there’s a river rolling softly toward the bay.
Back on AL225, I must check out the churches along the way. A small Catholic church in the woods has grown and been renovated since I last photographed it. Steps away is a sweet white Presbyterian chapel. Christmas decorations adorn most houses. A mobile home has a straight row of inflatables proclaiming insistent Christmas cheer; I do not normally approve of inflatables, but the determined neatness of this display makes me smile, as does the bundled-up toddler joyfully dashing in and out between the cheerful Christmas icons. I stop to take a photograph, but I see a fretful mother staring out the door and I think maybe not.
As AL225 gets closer to Spanish Fort and its southern terminus, Buzbee boat launch and fish camp appears to the east. It’s a landmark on this highway. Look to your west from the bridge that goes across at Buzbee and you get a glimpse of Mobile’s skyline across brackish waters. Look back east to the fish camp and you go back in time.
After passing Buzbee and the veterans cemetery, suburban communities begin to appear and Spanish Fort is not far now. Manicured lawns become more prominent and, this time of year, the camellias are in full bloom. I know, camellias are not native to Alabama. But they are the state flower, like it or not, and I do get a bit of a rush seeing a bush drooping with camellia blooms on a brisk December day. It is traditional, it is expected, and I’m okay with it. In fact, it makes me happy. 
AL225 ends at U.S. Highway 31 in Spanish Fort. Take a quick right turn, crossing three lanes of traffic, and there is Mobile Bay, choppy today, before you turn left at the next traffic light and head due south toward Daphne and Fairhope. The prize at the end is a brilliant sunset from my balcony at Point Clear.
I think about that turn all year. It still sends a gush of energy through my soul. 
Books for Holiday Giving and Reading Pleasure
A charming collection of a novella and eight short stories by Edward M. George. A celebration of the natural world by Margaret Renkl. A bold collection of poems by Matthew Minicucci. My review of these and other books, along with a treasure trove of other reviews, may be found at the Alabama Writers’ Forum website: writersforum.org.
Happy Reading and Happy Giving.
Christmas Time Is Here
photo (2016) by Carmen K. Sisson
Twenty years ago, my Christmas card was not intended to be the start of an annual tradition. I saw a white country church on a hill in Bibb County one December and commented that it would be a nice Christmas card image. A year later, I stopped to photograph that church and, a year later, I had Christmas cards made featuring one of those images.
The authenticity of the image pleased me and the response was positive and I decided to do it again if I found the proper image. Now it has become not just a personal tradition but a ritual, the planning for which commences each December. As soon as my cards are at the post office on December 1, I begin – like a Mardi Gras krewe planning a float down on the coast – to think about next year’s Christmas card.
It usually has to feature an old Alabama church – preferably white and wood-framed. These are the preferences of my recipients, actually. I have on occasion featured something other than a house of worship – a boathouse on Mobile Bay, a sprawling live oak – and I have heard what amount to complaints for not sending out another church. As printing costs and postage rates have increased, so has my Christmas card list. Friends around the country and across the world promptly notify of changes of address so that “we don’t miss out on this year’s Christmas card.”
For me, it has become a welcome distraction. I do not go overboard for Christmas – a wreath on the door, a bow on the mailbox – but I do find escape and peace in the personal meditation of signing and addressing a Christmas card. I have written about that kinship in the past. This year, unexpected passings have altered the names on my address list – they always do – but there always seem to be new names to add and the list grows rather than shrinks.
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My Christmas card this year features a church that has been on my wish list of images for years. Malbis Memorial Church (its official name is much more ornate) is a Greek Orthodox structure in Baldwin County, Alabama, near Daphne. It was built in 1965 as a memorial to Jason Malbis, a Greek immigrant who founded the self-sufficient Malbis Plantation in 1906. Over time, the plantation became a thriving community of Greek immigrants with influence in Baldwin County and in the city of Mobile across the bay.
Jason Malbis died on a trip to Greece in 1942 and the Malbis community built the memorial church that he had dreamed of. Greek and Italian artists and artisans did the highly detailed mosaics and iconography that give the church its wonder and majesty. Red marble columns and pilasters in the church’s interior create a splendor that belies the relatively small size of the building.
Nowadays, the church and plantation, which once existed in relative isolation, are on a busy highway surrounded by the sprawl of twenty-first century suburbia. Once at the church, however, it is not difficult to block out the noise of the traffic and forget the increasingly encroaching sprawl and find a place of peace and quiet meditation.
Happy Holidays and Peace in the New Year, everyone.
Finding the Tribe
I think there is a certain kind of pride in being from Alabama that people from outside the state – and many inside – don’t completely understand. Despite the ongoing embarrassment of the state by its politicians – which, of course, has to be blamed on the state’s electorate – those of us who aspire to be better plod on and remain hopeful that the political fervor and fever around us may somehow break. The more progressive thinkers among us feel almost like an underground movement since we don’t get much attention – but we’re here.
Birmingham, by far the most progressive Alabama city, tried to raise its minimum wage and elected to become a “sanctuary city” years ago; both moves were thwarted by a Republican governor and state legislature propped up by an Alabama constitution that dates back to 1901, geared at the time toward advancing Jim Crow and limiting “home rule” for Alabama’s city and towns. When Birmingham hosted the 2022 World Games and mayor Randall Woodfin wore a tee-shirt declaring “I am from the Great State of Birmingham,” I knew exactly what he meant.
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I found a proud Alabama tribe recently when I attended an event at Birmingham’s Grand Bohemian Hotel that reminded me that we who hope (and work) for a better Alabama are not alone. Alabama Humanities Alliance (AHA) presented the Alabama Colloquium honoring its Alabama Humanities Fellows of 2023.
The 2023 honorees are David Mathews and Imani Perry. David Mathews was the president of the University of Alabama when I was an undergraduate in the 1970s. At the time, he was the youngest president of a major university in the country. Mathews, from Grove Hill, Alabama, was Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in the Gerald Ford administration. He left Alabama to become the longtime director and CEO of the Kettering Foundation with a mission to strengthen democracy through community involvement. Alabama’s Center for Civic Life at American Village was renamed the David Mathews Center for Civic Life in his honor. His books include Politics for People, Together: Building Better, Stronger Communities, and With.
Scholar and writer Imani Perry is a Birmingham native and a professor of everything, it seems (law, literature, history, cultural studies), at Harvard University. Her most recent book, South to America, was a 2022 National Book Award winner that everyone should read. She is the recent recipient of a 2023 MacArthur Fellowship – the much-vaunted “genius grant.” Her books include Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry and May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, another Alabamian, was originally scheduled to moderate the conversation between Perry and Mathews and had to bow out after being sent to cover the war in Israel. She sent a video greeting and a “Roll Tide” from Tel Aviv, however, and was ably replaced by NPR’s Priska Neely, managing editor of the Gulf States Newsroom based in Birmingham. The ensuing conversation was wide-ranging, entertaining, astute, and riveting.
I was seated with friends and colleagues from Alabama Writers’ Forum, which supports literary arts, education, and awareness from around the state. The audience was diverse, and I definitely spotted some known Republicans in the mix, but the reputation of Alabama as a “deeply red” state – while evidenced by the politicians who seem to be perennially elected here – is misunderstood and misleading, perhaps, outside our borders. The “red state / blue state” trope, I’m afraid, emphasizes our differences more than our commonalities.
What strikes me is the fact that many people outside our state don’t comprehend that these sorts of public events and conversations happen frequently within our borders. In a time of condemning stereotypes, I’m afraid that certain condescending Southern stereotypes are still given credence by misinformed people.
Even so, it was rewarding to be in the company of like-minded and engaged Alabamians with a national influence and to note the ever-present hope and potential for our state and our nation moving forward. It’s always more productive, I think, to work for progress and change from within than to criticize from without.
Falling Leaves
For the first time in my memory, my mom has decided she likes fall leaves on the ground. On her afternoon walks up the neighborhood streets, she has been admiring the beauty of the leaves on the ground – and even says she hopes the neighbors don’t rush to rake or blow them away.
This is noteworthy because I remember a childhood of being told how messy the leaves looked and having to rake them repeatedly throughout the fall. It was frustrating to rake all Saturday afternoon with leaves still falling all around me. Even then, I would stress the virtues of letting the leaves decay where they lay; only years later did I learn that I was right.
Those afternoons were made sweeter if I had a radio nearby broadcasting John Forney and Doug Layton announcing another Alabama football victory with Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant at the helm.
Mother is particularly taken with a young maple in the front yard across the street. Its bronzy saffron leaves almost covered the yard and a brisk breeze would send them dancing into the street and neighboring yards. Its foliage turned color from the top down and now there is a thin layer of colorful leaves at the bottom, crowned by the bare limbs.
Early this morning, the neighbor’s yard maintenance guy arrived. Within a half hour, the maple leaves on the ground were gone. An hour after he left, a healthy amount of the striking leaves was already drifting down, covering the grass again. 
Unless you go the short distance from Shades Mountain into the higher mountains, this area is not known for a brilliant fall display. The fall color is even more subdued and muted this year, with a significant drought building since September. As much as I despise cold weather, however, there is an undeniable energy in the air when the weather begins to change and the fleeting beauty of Nature takes hold for a few weeks before the holiday season fully kicks in.
As the sun sets and more leaves fall, trees become more visible down the hill, creating a brief and peaceful display down the mountain toward the creek.
This year, most of the warm weather plants were damaged in a short-lived freeze. Some plants weathered it and others gave up. They have been replaced by pansies, which my mom loves (although I prefer violas for cool weather blooms). More pansies will be added over time, complemented with violas probably, as more of the remaining plants fade away.
A bag of bulbs arrived recently and are now in the ground; I planted them but will be surprised when they start popping up in late winter. Years ago, at my house in another town, I randomly planted ninety crocuses in the front yard one November. I planted them so I knew they were there. Even so, I was always startled when the first bud appeared in early February.
Pre-planned serendipity. 
Book Review: Magic City
My review for Magic City by Burgin Mathews was just posted on the Alabama Writers’ Forum website. Magic City, to be released in November, explores the rich heritage of jazz that emerged from the Birmingham area and went on to have national influence. Here’s a preview:
Magic City: How the Birmingham Jazz Tradition Shaped the Sound of America
Book Review: Silent Bob
Here’s a book that’s kinda different. Silent Bob by Joe Taylor is a comic fantasy novel about how our lives are really controlled by viziers on the roof. Who knew? My review for Alabama Writers’ Forum is just out.
Professional Southerner 