In 1860, two-year-old Matilda arrived in Alabama, a captive on the last known ship to carry enslaved people to the United States. For decades, the slave ship Clotilda was the subject of rumors and the target of a search and investigation into the illegal operation.

One hundred and sixty-three years later, Matilda’s two great-great-great-granddaughters, Zionne and Zoe McCrear, are students at Birmingham-Southern College. As part of a BSC grant project, the sisters recently had the opportunity to visit Africatown, the historic community north of downtown Mobile formed by a small group of West Africans who arrived on the Clotilda.

STEMMing the Tide

In spring 2022, BSC was awarded a $1.25 million grant from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Gulf Coast Research Program to develop a curriculum focused on environmental justice and climate change for schools in Mobile, Alabama.

The grant team is partnering with community agencies and educators in Africatown to develop a locally relevant middle school curriculum focused on environmental justice. The curriculum incorporates the disciplines known as STEM – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — along with service learning to make connections between local environment, the community, and individual health.

The project initially targets middle school students at Mobile County Training School in Africatown, where students are exploring the impact of years of environmental injustice and pollution in their neighborhoods, how the local environment affects human and community health, and how public policies, climate change, and industrial pollution impact schools and neighborhoods.

In October 2022, the McCrear sisters traveled with the grant team to Africatown. Desireé Melonas Ph.D., assistant professor of political science and director of the BSC Black Studies Program, led the team in conjunction with the Black Student Union.

“This was a great example of service learning and citizenship justice,” she says. “Our time was spent, among other ways, connecting with other descendants and tracing some of the geographic aspects of their lineage.”

A Personal Connection

In 2022, the descendants of the people who arrived on the Clotilda became the subject of the award-winning documentary “Descendant,” from Higher Ground, the production company of Barack and Michelle Obama. “Descendant” is available on Netflix and most streaming services.

Zionne, a BSC senior, and Zoe, a BSC sophomore, first learned about their own connection to the Clotilda in high school.

“In 9th grade, our English teacher did a study of our last names and where they originated,” Zoe says. “My dad told me that our last name started off as Creagh, the name of a slave owner. He said that our great-great-great grandmother, Matilda, was a slave. She endured a lot of pain and suffering, on account of her slave master. She later changed her last name in order to escape that history.”

Zionne recalls her grandmother talking about Matilda.

“She said that her dad used to tell her that Matilda was very strong-willed and had a lot of tenacity.”

Visiting Africatown

Zionne says that what struck her most about Africatown was that MCTS students do not have adequate educational resources, such as a school library, science lab equipment, or even nutritious school lunches.

“With the STEMMing the Tide project, teachers and community partners are working with MCTS to help develop their curriculum,” she says. “During Dr. Kate Haydon’s provost forum, we learned that there is a lack of representation in STEMM education among minorities in general, but especially for African Americans.”

“We were able to get pipettes donated for the science lab, and part of the curriculum includes lab demonstrations, wildlife conservation, and working in the community garden,” says Zoe.

Zionne says that she immediately noticed how much industry and pollution surrounded the community.

“In a way, this small town is suffocating. It’s obvious that Africatown is being neglected by the city of Mobile. It was heart-wrenching.”

“When we were touring the church, the pastor told us that he has done a lot of funerals all related to cancer, from the pollution,” says Zoe. “The soil and environment are affected.”

Looking Ahead

“This experience has furthered my love for public health, and I want to learn more about it,” says Zionne, a chemistry major and Paul W. Burleson Scholarship recipient. Last summer, she completed an internship through the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty (SHECP) at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

“I definitely want to work in a field centered on public health,” Zionne says. “There is so much more than just giving a patient medicine or treating symptoms. Their socio-economic status and their environment all plays into their overall health. I want to do more with that and get more people involved. I recognize that this is a public health issue.”

Zoe, double-majoring in finance and marketing, says that her experience in Africatown made her want to raise awareness of what the community needs.

“I became really passionate about helping the kids and seeing their potential. I want to give them ownership: this is your community, and there’s a lot you can do to help your community.”