Mosaic

Reparations Reminder

iscovery in 2019 near Mobile, Alabama, of—the last vessel to smuggle slaves from Africa into the United States, wrecked in 1860—made headlines. A recent report focuses on one of 100-some survivors of that ship’s deliveries: a captive kidnapped across the Atlantic at age two who spent part of her childhood in Mobile’s Africatown neighborhood among other survivors. Tildy McCrear renamed herself, maintained her West African identity, and enjoyed a common-law marriage with a German-born white man, bearing 14 children. In 1931, McCrear, 70, with Redoshi Smith, another survivor, sued seeking compensation for their enslavement. The case was summarily dismissed by a Selma, Ala., probate judge. McCrear, the last survivor, died in 1939. Hannah Durkin of England’s Newcastle University reconstructed her and her family members’ lives in the journal in March 2020.