On Thursday, April 7, at 7 p.m., Montclair Public Library will be hosting Ben Raines, an award-winning journalist, in conversation with Sowande’ Mustakeem, associate professor of history and African American studies at Washington University in St. Louis. They will be discussing “The Last Slave Ship,” Raines’s new book about his discovery of the wreck of the Clotilda, the last vessel to bring enslaved people from Africa to Alabama, 50 years after the transAtlantic slave trade became illegal, and the fate of Africatown, the remarkable town founded by the Clotilda’s survivors.
The program is part of Open Book / Open Mind Online, the live webcast version of the popular, long-running literary conversation series. After the discussion, audience members will participate in a virtual Q&A session with the author.
Ben Raines is an award-winning environmental journalist, filmmaker, and charter captain. He lives in Fairhope, Alabama.
As The New York Times review describes it, “The fast-paced narrative begins with the voyage and follows the Clotilda’s survivors beyond the Civil War….Raines vividly conjures the watery landscape into which the Africans stepped… Knowledge of these waterways also led Raines to locate the Clotilda in a place previous searchers had ignored.”
“The Last Slave Ship” is available for sale by our program partner, watchung booksellers, and available to borrow from MPL.
Sowande’ Mustakeem is an associate professor of history and African American studies at Washington University in St. Louis and the author of “Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage.”
Montclair Public Library Presents Ben Raines in Conversation with Sowande’ Mustakeem, “The Last Slave Ship”
Registration: Open now
Tickets: Free
Platform: Zoom Webinar