Major Joe Full Interview

00:00 Kaylee Elliot: This is Kaylee Elliot with the Africatown Digital Archive Project and I'm here interviewing Major Womack on January 3rd, 2018. Major Joe is going to tell me about his experiences growing up in Africatown. So, Major Joe what was your favorite thing to do in Africatown as a kid?

Major Joe Womack: My favorite thing to do growing up as a kid was just out playin' with my friends. Out playin' sports especially during the summertime. Playin' softball, baseball, and enjoying outdoor activities with my friends.

Elliot: Yeah, and I know you talked about, before, all the fruits that you had around Africatown that you would pick over the summer. Could you tell me a little bit more about what was there and what you're missing now? Because I know you said some of them are gone.

00:51 Major Womack: Yeah, it seems as though we had just about every type of fruit a kid would want because---and they were free and just in people's yard 00:01:00and in vacant lots walkin' down the street. Some of the more plentiful ones that I can remember of course are fig trees and the figs and of course about everyone in the community preserved figs. And you could walk into people's houses all the time in the town and it seemed like they had some figs preserved somewhere. And so, the figs trees were very plentiful. Scuppernongs, it seemed like scuppernongs were wild growin' everywhere. You had Scuppernong vines everywhere and so you could just walk around the street and eat those any--at any time. Of course, blackberries during blackberry season. Blackberries were everywhere. All around the houses all out in the fields and people were out there pickin' blackberries all the time and then of course people were makin' blackberry pies. You could have those just about any time of the day, any time of the year 00:02:00mostly, when they were growin'. Mulberry, had a bunch of mulberry trees out there and they were very plentiful. Plums were very plentiful. We had what was known as the plum orchard across here. Across the river, across the bridge. And plums it seemed were everywhere. Peaches---peach trees were just about everywhere you could find. And those were some of the most fruitful type of fruits that we had in the area. Not as often though we had persimmon and persimmon trees. Very few of those but they were available though. And oranges and lemon trees. There weren't a lot of them but they were available also. And, um, I may be missin' one or two here or there but those were the most fruitful 00:03:00ones that I can recall.

03:04 Elliot: Yeah, and which ones are still here that you can find around the community?

Major Womack: You still find some fig trees. Not as many as you used to find. I don't know if I've seen any persimmon trees, or not even any scuppernongs that I can recall seein' around the area. There might be some in some weeds and stuff but I don't see any of those and I don't see the peach trees and no plums either. Blackberries still grow pretty good but not as wild as they used to be. And, uhm, other than fig trees those about the only things that I can see most of the time. And of course, blackberries during blackberry season but it seems as though they are mostly gone now, mostly gone. And just a related story not 00:04:00dealin' with fruit but there's also a tree around the corner from where I stayed on---I stayed on center street and on green street. That was a great big ol' tree, and it's still there, and it had a big ol' hole in it. About this big *gestures with hands* and every year the bees would come back. The honey bees would come 'cause they made the honey. And they would come and they would swarm everywhere but they never really stung anybody. And one lady we called Ms. Bertha and she would go in there she would just stick her hand up in there and pull out the honey and put it in bags---not bags but cans and stuff and take the stuff home. And the bees never bothered her. But the bees don't come back 00:05:00anymore. That tree is still there, that big hole is still there, but the bee's gone. They don't come back anymore.

05:12 Elliot: So, you used to be able to just pick fruit whenever you wanted. And I know you also talked about being able to fish with your grandpa.

Major Womack: Yeah, course Africatown is bounded on three sides by water and we did a lot of fishin' out in the Mobile River and the related streams and lakes and stuff that go off the river. My grandad always built his boat. He would always build about a twelve or fifteen or sixteen-foot boat and he'd build it out of wood. It seemed like every year he was buildin' a new one or puttin' it together because at the end of the fishin' season he would just put it out there in the water and it would sort of rot out so he would either have to either rebuild the bottom of it or rebuild a new one in itself. But he would take me 00:06:00and my brother out---my older brother out there. He had four daughters and then when we came along you know we were first real quote sons that he had so he would take us just about everywhere, especially fishin'. And so, we would fish a lot out there in the river. We would actually go out in the boat. Most lot of people was fishin' on the shore. A lot of our friends were fishin' on the shore and I sometimes went out there, did some fishin' on the shore but mostly crabbin' on the shore. But we would actually go out, we'd leave in the mornin' about five, get out there on the water and he would go different places. And some of the places it may take us an hour to get out there. But he always had his special spot in different places where we would fish and I really enjoyed those times we had fishin' together. And we didn't fish for sport we fished for 00:07:00food. *laughs* We didn't fish or hunt for sport there was no sport.

07:12 Elliot: Yeah, so you said you used to be able to just go off the shore and just go into the water anywhere around---?

Major Womack: Yeah, pretty much. Most of that was we would walk over to the causeway and because the causeway out there that you see between basically Mobile and (Indecipherable) county most of it it waist deep and it looks like it's a lot deeper than that but it's not. And so, we would just walk out there along the shore, (indecipherable) in the water, do a lot of crabbin' and catchin' footload(?). Full tub full of crab and bring it back and my mother, grandmother, and aunts and stuff---we ate a lot of crab gumbo back then. They take the crab and put 'em in Gumbo and cut up some sausages and stuff, made some 00:08:00rice, and that was dinner.

08:07 Elliot: Are y'all still able to access some of your---you said you had favorite fishing spots that you were able to get to, besides the causeway?

Major Womack: Oh well out in the river you had to go to---those fishin' spots I was talkin' about out in the river you had to go in a boat and go out there. I don't really fish anymore but along the causeway those spots are still available because they have kept the causeway up pretty much and its protected. It's a part of the Tensaw River Delta. And so, they've kept the causeway up but some of the spots along the (indecipherable) the three-mile creek, you couldn't fish in it because they began dumpin' raw sewage in three-mile creek. And it was just raw sewage for a long time. And then they finally cleaned that up with the state law and the federal laws and stuff. They eventually cleaned it up. So, the three-mile creek is---you know I've seen it come full circle. Now people are 00:09:00fishing again in the three-mile creek. And the Hog Bayou area, after the industry moved in there, folks stopped pretty much goin' from the community off walkin' to Hog Bayou because you couldn't walk because the industry was there. Both International Paper and Scotts

09:22 so you couldn't walk in right to the waterway. To hunt back there, my grandaddy used to take us around the backsides where the walk that bridge that still there behind Scott Kimberley Clark. We used to walk that area and walk behind. But not a lot of people did that. And so, he had his own huntin' crew, about six kids that included me and my brother. And we would walk back there and do some huntin'

10:02 Elliot: Why don't you fish anymore?

Major Womack: Well I pretty much---well I almost stopped fishin' pretty much when I started playin' high school sports. Because most of my time on Saturdays, especially into the summer time when you did most of the fishin' was dedicated to playin'---you know practicin' for high school sports. So, if you played high school sports you were either playing sports or practicin' to play sports. And so, I told my grandfather I wanted to take them time on Saturday to get out there because I was gonna be a professional foot---baseball player. Was no doubt in my mind I was gonna professional baseball player so I needed to practice and get out there and get better. So, I pretty much stopped fishin' on a regular basis probably about the time I got into the tenth grade, about fifteen years old.

Elliot: So, is baseball the only sport you played?

11:01 Major Womack: I played baseball and I also played football. Now I didn't get a chance to really sort of fulfill my football obligation because I was in an accident near the end of my tenth-grade season. And back then---I hurt my leg in a car hit while I was ridin' my bicycle. And back then there was nit a lot rehabilitation and so it took about two years almost for my leg to get back to strength. So, I didn't concentrate on playing football I just concentrated on baseball.

Elliot: I know you talked about the bell that used to ring can you tell me about that again?

11:46 Major Womack: Well the history of the bell goes way back. And I guess most of it is folklore but I go back to a lot of stuff I talk about is what my grandaddy and him and Henry William's told me comin' up and my grandaddy and 00:12:00Henry Williams(Spell Check) were good friends. They were in church together and sometimes went to our houses and stuff together.

Major Womack: The bell is the only thing that was saved off the slave ship the Clotilda. As the story goes of course when they brought the slaves back they were about to be caught so they destroyed all the evidence so they burned and sank the Clotilda in the middle of the Mobile River, Mobile Bay. But as far as the bell is concerned that was supposedly a bell of most of the ships and stuff back then. And the people that they brought from Africa, about 110 of them, they didn't speak any English or anything. Matter of fact a lot of them were not from the same tribe so I don't know if they spoke the same language but they did communicate. And what the bell did for them---it was sort of a sense of 00:13:00security. They were down in the hull of the ship and of course on the trip back across the water you had bad weather good weather. So, when the weather was good the bell did not clang much 'cause the seas were calm and there was no reason to ruffle the bell. And so, but when they heard the bell clangin', you know fast and faster and faster they knew that the waves were comin' and then the storm was comin'. And so, they sort of huddled together as far as protection to comfort themselves down there in the hull of the ship. And so, as they were puttin' the captives ashore some kind of way---so the story goes, they knew that they were gonna destroy that ship. And so, as they were gettin' off the ship 00:14:00they reached back and said, "the bell the bell! give me the bell!" and so probably one of the only act of kindness that they showed toward the captives, they gave them the bell. And so, they dragged that bell with them wherever they went. When they first got off the ship they saw the hill in a place behind what is now Mobile County Training School (indecipherable) back there for a little while. And then they eventually first settled right near the river with a group of people, I guess they were property of the (indecipherable) back then. They were known as the Moors. And they stayed with them for a while but then they moved closer---further inland higher ground because when it was rainin' the place would flood and stuff and they didn't really like it down there. So, they 00:15:00moved inland and that’s where they established the community of, then, Plateau and Magazine Point. And they dragged that bell with 'em. And they eventually established a church, Union Baptist Church and that's where they first put the bell up in that church. And then they established a school and they moved the bell over to the school. And the community would ring the bell on different occasions. If there was a fire or somethin' they rang the bell so people knew somethin' was goin' on. They would come out and help each other put out the fire. But then they began ringin' it to let the folks know that school was takin' in and then that school was lettin' out. And then they began ringin' it whenever the school started playin' sports to let the community know that the school had won the game. And so, people in the community got sorta familiar with 00:16:00the bell. And so, it was sort of a source of pride for the school because the school did win a lot of games in sports. Football, basketball, and baseball. So, the bell would ring quite often. And it became a thing of pride for the school and for the entire community. And in the nineties, I guess the bell---I don't know if it had ever been repaired or been painted or anything but someone from school maintenance came out there and said, "we wanna"---- there were fifty(?) that were fixin' up the school and they said, "we wanna fix up the bell" and they came out there and removed the bell and never brought it back. And so, this past summer the alumni association said we're gonna get our own bell and so went out and found a bell and bought it and dedicated it this past summer. And so, we brought the bell back.

Elliot: Where is at now?

Major Womack: It's at---its on the campus of Mobile County Training School.

Elliot: Okay, and can you talk about the Mobile County Training School?

Major Womack: Yeah, the school itself was established back in 1880. Of course, the last shipment of slaves came over here in 1860 and in 1870 incorporated the area Plateau and Magazine Point. So, it made it an official incorporated the area, the community. And so, in 1880, the school's third year, the government---the law said basically, you know, you need to--you're part of the city so you need to educate the children. And they said that's fine so they said, "build us a school" and they said, "well you ain't gonna build it over there." So, where we gonna build it? And so, the community got together and the 00:18:00people that owned the land that now for the community center said---and the Mobile County Training School said they gave that land to the school for the purposes of educatin' only for the purposes of educatin' and recreation of the children of the community. And that was the agreement. And so, I forget the year when they first established the school on that area there. It was the early 1900's but they established and built a school for the community there. It went from the first to the twelfth grade. It wasn't called Mobile County Training school back then---and excuse me for not remembering some of this stuff but it was the Plateau Normal School for Training, or something like that. Well eventually after 1910 when it was certified---the school was certified by the 00:19:00state of 1910 as Mobile County Training School and became the first training school for blacks in the state of Alabama. And it was certified by the national accreditation association for (indecipherable) an association back then that only accredited colleges around the (indecipherable) so it's got that certification back in about nineteen---around 1930 I think it was. So, it was a very prestigious and well thought out and planned educational process that the people in Africatown went through and it was the only school for---well not the only school, the only public school for blacks in the area in Mobile County so people came from miles around to come to Mobile County Training School to get educated.

Elliot: So you left for college and the military and I was just wondering how you think Africatown changed once you left and you came back.

Major Womack: I left basically for about a six-year period. Four years of college and two years of military. I left in about '68 and I graduated at sixteen and I left that fall and basically came back for good in '73--'74---'75. And that time some of the things that happened that sort of negatively affected the community were they began to rezone areas in and around the community for heavy industry. And a lot of warehouses were moved in and around the area. And 00:21:00some other industries, piping and other things were moved in and around the area. And that was probably one of the most significant things that is still effectin’ the community today. Now accordin' to the community it's known as Africatown, I had never heard the word Africatown until I came back. You know, Africatown is basically made up of different neighborhoods and the largest neighborhood being Plateau and then the next one being, at that time, was Magazine Point and Happy Hills is another area. That's three. And Kelly(?) hills is basically two or three streets near Happy Hills, that's four. And then you have Lewis Quarters which is basically now just a little area that is composed of eight to ten houses, that's five. Then you have the Hog Bayou area that has 00:22:00never had houses in there. But then they did the move the industry in there once they rezoned it to heavy industry. That's where International paper and Scott's sat. The area where the community garden is now, that was a housing area that we called New Quarters because it was one of the newest areas. One of the last areas where they put up houses, and they called it New Quarters. But---and those houses were being rented out by the Meyher Family(?) 10:24, that's the same family that brought the slaves over. And a matter of fact they probably rented and owned more houses in and around Africatown than anybody else because they owned this property. So, they built the houses and rented 'em out. But they didn't do a lot repair to the houses because people weren't doing the repairs themselves, they didn't do the repairs, so a lot of these houses eventually 00:23:00just, you know, people moved out 'em because there was a disrepair and they eventually tore 'em down. So that happened in the New Quarters area where the community garden now stands. And it happened in an area now that's grown up by woods and that’s right around Yorktown Baptist Church and Union Baptist Church, there were houses back off there years ago. And a lot of these houses were made of redwood lumbar. So, they were really strong and study houses but over the years you know if you don't repair anything it'll fall down on ya'

Elliot: I was just wondering what neighborhood you grew up in in Africatown?

Major Womack: Plateau was considered the prime area--primary area of---and the most populated area of Africatown. On Center street which is basically about the center of the neighborhood.

Elliot: What do you think the best part of growing up in Africatown was?

Major Womack: Probably to me the closeness of the community and the community really

*Video Cuts off*

Major Womack: ....family, takin' care of the children, everybody knew everybody and so it was almost like one big family. You went to school together, you went to church together, you played together. And most---there was so many children out there that you didn't have leave your immediate--you didn't have to go no more than a hundred, two hundred yards from your house to find both of your friends. That's where your friends were. About 100-200 yards from your house. Some of the people that lived on the other end of the street, you knew 'em, but they really weren't your close friends 'cause they weren't two or three houses down from ya. And so that was enough friends, two or three houses down from 00:25:00where---that was your friends. All you needed was you and five or six more people. That's all you needed basically. That was your group and you're always basically about the same age and so to me I enjoy the closeness of the community. And at one time, understand this is before I went to high school that---when you went to school on Mondays the--the teacher required you to show something that you had gotten from your preacher at church to show that you went to church on Sunday. And if you didn't go to church on Sunday then that was some type of you know, I wouldn't say punishment but they wanted you to always go to church and go to school so they wanted proof that you went to church. So that 00:26:00was just the closeness of the community.

Elliot: Do you feel it's still as close today

Major Womack: No, not close today because several things, mostly as the kids got older and they become quote more educated they wanted more so they got good jobs---they went everywhere to get jobs, get educated. So, they moved out and a lot of them never come back. And so, we got a lot of---that creates some problems with housing in the area and houses not being up kept and houses with taxes not being paid. And sometimes I'll also say, years ago before the laws changed in this country everyone lived inside the tracks, so to say. "Don't go 00:27:00to the other side of the tracks" the parents would say. Don't go out of the neighborhood. Now when I say everybody lived in the track, on this side of the track, that meant that the preachers lived there. And the preachers were good people and they had good kids so their kids went to the same school. The doctors lived there, the lawyers lived there, the teachers lived there. And so, their children went to the school. And so, you were going to school with lawyers and doctors and teachers and preachers’ children. And those children sort of set the example for the other children and so it made for a better---to me it made for a better school. But then once the laws changed then you could move away from it on the other side of the tracks. Those who were able moved on the other side of the tracks and that left those who were not able. You had your A, 00:28:00B, and C students who were able to move out but then those who weren't able to move out were your C and D students. And so that left C and D students without other A and B students to serve as a role model to follow. Nobody messed with the preachers' children. Nobody messed with the teachers' children because they were the teachers. You weren't gonna mess with their children. And so I think that's just a small piece of the problem that now exists and I know at one time when I moved away from industry and start other fields of employment... *Video cuts off*

Major Womack: ...sister that actually taught at the school and she told me to come over there and substitute and sort of help her for a while until I got my---until I moved from industry to another field of employment. And I came over 00:29:00there and the kids at the school, most of them, I had gone to school with their parents. And I said, "he acts just like his dad" *Laughs* He acts just like his momma, that's the way his momma act. So those are some of the things that just sort of have to---that I think makes a difference today in the type of community that now exists and I often said to that---when the law was changed you have to look at the laws and look at what’s workin' and not workin', you know? When I was in the industry and we want to build a new facility, they had a special (indecipherable) and of course everybody wanted you to---the new industry, the 00:30:00new facility that you put in to immediately run at a hundred percent. Well that don't work. If you go to the industry and they just build it today it don't automatically run at a hundred percent. You gotta go in there and say this thing ain't workin', it's runnin' at ninety-eight, it's runnin' at eighty-nine, what's wrong with it? Well this ain't workin' the way we thought it was. So, you make change and you eventually build up to a hundred percent. It seems to me as though when a lot of laws, especially dealin' with education were changed and things changed it was twenty-five, thirty years later before they began makin' change to make the law better. So yeah (indecipherable) people just, you know, things weren't right and nobody was makin' no changes.

Janet Fiskio: I wanted to follow up on that. This is something that people 00:31:00talked about at the oral history workshop too which is that you're saying that before the laws change, that means during segregation? And so, it sounds like the school was a really important place during segregation.

Major Womack: Oh yeah it was, it was. Because, that--your whole world was on the side of the tracks. So, everything that you learned, you either learned at at your house, at your church, or at your school. And most of the time most of the real work that you did was at the school. When you at the house you're at the house to eat and sleep mostly and you at church you had a few hours one day a week. But at school you were there---that was really your job so the school---what you learned at school was very important to the kids and everyone took it very seriously. Everyone took it very, very, seriously. With a lot of 00:32:00the teachers and other people stayin' in the community, back then there didin't seem to be a big need for parents to go over there at the school to check up on the children. Because, a lot of the times the teachers lived on the same street or down the street from them and they would stop by the parents’ home on the way home and say, you know, " Jovi(Spell Check) you better check on 'em, he's not doin' that. And so, we knew that was happening so those things changed so now the parents really need to go to school more often to check up on their children. They'll just wait for the card to come out and know that your child's not doin' well in school.

Janet Fiskio: You said the things you learned in school were really important. What kinds of things do you feel like you learned from going to school there? *Video Cuts Off*

Major Womack: Um... Other than of course the education itself there was a lot of 00:33:00focus on dress, you know, it was uniform. And so, you had the---and everyone took pride in the way that they dressed. They may not have had but one or two pair of jeans but they washed those jeans two or three times a week. Girls may not have had but one or two blouses but they were always clean. They were always clean. So, people took pride in the way they looked, the way they dressed, and the way that they spoke, the way that they talk. We had some teachers if you said the word "ain't" they would sit you in the corner. Or they would take that ruler and crack your knuckles, every time. They would slap you upside the head or somethin'. You just didn't use the word "ain't". That was a no no. So that adherence to the rules, we really---I think the teachers and the parents that 00:34:00worked with 'em did a good job of tryin' to make the speech (indecipherable) 'cause I remember when I first went off to school, college, I went up to Virginia and other than a little slang in my language, people would say, "you ain't from Alabama." So, you know other than me sayin', "y'all got the prettiest girls in the world!" But I think the attention to dress at that time and the fact that a lot of the teachers knew the parents and paid special attention to the children and there just seemed to be just a different focus of level for the teachers and the students too, and the parents. It all seemed to be workin' 00:35:00together back then. I know that not a lot of schools---I won't say not a lot of schools 'cause I really don't know. But at Mobile County Training School they don't really have a PT, a parent-teacher association. It's very small and hard to get the parents to work in there. I know they've tried but they haven't been very successful in the last few years.

Janet Fiskio: What was it like then? So, the school it sounds like, and the town during---when you were growing up were such a good---like Africatown is such a good place to grow up. And the school was such a good school What was it like in Mobile when you used to cross the tracks and go to the other side?

Major Womack: I didn't go across the tracks that much. Other than goin' to shop with my mother, and that was with my mother, downtown in Pritchard and comin' to 00:36:00Mardi Gras and of course after the parade we would just go back home. And I don't remember a lot of relatives that lived outside of Africatown. There really---goin' to the movies and goin' back home and of course the main movie was a single theatre down here and they had a back door---we went in the back door. And of course, back then they had (indecipherable) on Martin Luther King Ave, they had some--they had two or three movie theatres there. But other than that, I didn't visit outside Africatown a lot.

Janet Fiskio: So it was really self-sufficient?

Major Womack: Yeah, yeah, pretty much was.

Elliot: I know you said there are a lot of businesses there. Like laundromats and stuff like that.

Major Womack: Yeah, laundromats. A couple of laundromats. We just take the laundry and cleaners and of course a lot of stores, a lot of corner stores. And 00:37:00you know not a lot of people---I would guess about a third of the people had a car. But people would take other people everywhere. I know that after my mother and father got a divorce my mother didn't have a car and so my grandad, my uncle, even her friends across the street and down the street used to take her to grocery shop, to grocery stores. "I'm goin' to the grocery store do you want to?" "yeah" so they went every Saturday or somethin' like that. And so, people would readily help out each other and it didn't seem to be a problem.

Elliot: What happened to all the stores in the community?

Major Womack: Well they eventually---as the community began to dry up some of 00:38:00the stores also began to dry up. And as the people got older the younger---nobody really took it up and so they eventually ended up basically with----you had whole grocery stores in Plateau. You had Randolph(Spell Check)store and Magazine Point and those were the two biggest ones that lasted the longest that I can remember in the community.

Elliot: So I was just wondering what your hopes for Africatown are now.

Major Womack: Well the hopes and the plans and the vision is to save the community. By saving the community and by saving the school we can help save the people. And we think it's worth savin'. You have to---we have to save the school because, if we lose the school there's a good chance we'll lose the community 00:39:00because they pretty much go hand-in-hand. The school had just as much---almost as much rich history if not more than the community does and those two need to stay intact. What we hope to do with the school is to---we want to always keep it as a public school because we don't want to lose that financial chain. I know people talk about charter schools and this and that but I know a few charter schools that start up and they did well for about four or five years but then they're now closed. And one of the reasons is why is they started to lose their financial support and it takes money to run a school. So, we would like for it to always be, some kind of way, connected to the public school system for that financial support but we want to have a unique--we want to have it so other kids want to come to our school. Years ago, people wanted to come to our school basically because of the uniqueness of it. Well that and plus there were only 00:40:00two or three schools in the area anyway. And we were unique in the--a lot of the parents went there and they wanted their children to go there. And sports was very important to everybody so everybody wanted to be a part of the winnin' team. So, people came from other areas to come to Mobile County Training School. We want to make it unique again and we want to try and find our niche and I guess were still searchin' for something and who knows it may be--we've talked about bringin' back the band. Maybe it's that we have one of the best middle school bands in the area so people want to send their kids to learn about music. Maybe we focus on music. Maybe we may have something that deals with the arts and crafts. You know with the play you're talkin' about developing. And out of 00:41:00that we become more involved in playwriting and acting and stuff like that. So, we want to try to establish our own niche in Mobile County. You know a lot of counties have schools of math and science and other specialties. We want to have a specialty in Mobile County Training School. And that will attract people from outside the community. Now we also would like to---of course one of the keys to bring the community back is to get these houses refurbished and restored so we can bring people back into the community. Once you start bringing people back into the community then they bring their children or they have children and that will help the population get back to where it needs to be. And of course, one of the big key things to is the historical value of the community. We steadily 00:42:00tryin' to show the people who quote make the decisions in Mobile both in community and in the school the historical significance and how they are not capitalizing on that. And the more things that come out and Africatown is in National News such as this story with Gates interviewing Questlove to find out his roots go back to Africatown and stuff like that. People find out who actually came from Africatown. We're hopin' that stuff will help build a need, an interest for people to want to come here and see what this Africatown thing is all about. So, and that is beginnin' to happen on the small. I had somebody call the last week, one or two (indecipherable) and so if we can get stuff established around and get the city of Mobile to buy into it. Get out councilman 00:43:00to buy---to focus more on this neighborhood. That's one of the biggest problems--the community has turned out athletes and others but we never really turn out politicians. So, the politicians that represent us don't know about the community. Don't know especially--they didn't grow up in Africatown they don't know about Africatown. They don't know the significance of it. And that's one thing that really triggers me when I first got involved at the commissioners at that time. He was still tryin' to bring business in. He was tryin' to move people out and bring businesses in. He just didn't know about Africatown. "Man don't talk to me about that Africatown stuff" I went to his office to see to try to talk about it and he didn't want to talk about it. But he's now gone but we've got to get the interest of the politicians and spark that, their interest 00:44:00will begin to build once they can buy into the significance and how it's gonna help the city. The way it's gonna help the city is of course if you get tourists comin' in here on a regular basis and they fill up the hotels, spend a week here in Mobile and visit Africatown for a day, visit other parts for a day, spend money and that's how the politicians get interested. That could happen but they first gotta see the interest.

Elliot: You said there's some famous... Video cuts out