Africatown shot to the forefront of the world’s consciousness with the sensational May 2019 discovery of the sunken slave ship Clotilda in the Mobile River Delta. It illegally brought 110 kidnapped West Africans to America’s shores in 1860. After a short enslavement, and unable to return home, 32 of the Africans formed and governed their own community in 1865. Their descendants and the community they founded exist today, but Africatown suffers from generations of benign neglect and industrial encroachment.

The Africatown International Design Idea Competition leverages the spectacular Clotilda find to give multi-disciplinary design teams a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to imagine a revived Africatown, with 16 land and water-edged venues on 4 sites across 3 cities that interpret and honor its history.

Taken together, the 16 venues are destined to constitute a major new cultural heritage tourism destination system called The Africatown Cultural Mile™. We believe it can attract millions of visitors and generate billions of dollars in revenue for the economy of Africatown, the Cities of Prichard and Chickasaw, and the greater Mobile region.