An Update on the Clotilda + an Interview with Mike Foster

*Just a quick note to say I know the audio on this episode is a bit spotty and breathy; I had to use a Cloud recording because we had a few connection glitches on the day, my apologies!*

Join me for this, an update on the media involving + important work being done around the shipwreck of the Clotilda, which I featured in an Unsinkable side series episode this past spring. In this episode I speak with Mike Foster, whose ancestor William Foster captained (and burned) the slave ship. Mike has become a vocal advocate for Africatown and the legacy of the Clotilda; he speaks candidly with me about his relationship to descendants, his own emotional journey in becoming part of this story, and the ways in which Africatown is looking to the future. I am so grateful he gave me this time.

Mike's bio: Mike Foster was born in California in 1947, and raised there. He went into the United States Air Force in 1965 and served over 21 years. He has lived in ten states and four foreign countries, including England and Italy. He has kissed the Blarney Stone, been to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and served as a noncombatant tour in Vietnam.  He is a published poet, and enjoys working on his family genealogy. He is married, a father and grandfather, and lives in Montana.

You can see the 60 Minutes interview we reference here:  https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&ei=UTF-8&p=mike+foster+60+minutes&type=E211US1490G0#id=2&vid=04f2e6628d337b1c0f920625d3920ce9&action=click

The books we reference:

-Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo  https://bookshop.org/books/barracoon-the-story-of-the-last-black-cargo/9780062748218

-Emma Langdon Roche's The Last Voyage of the Clotilda: https://bookshop.org/books/the-last-voyage-of-the-clotilda-the-true-story-of-the-last-slave-ship-voyage-1914/9781387870080

-Sylviane Diouf's Dreams of Africa in Alabama: https://bookshop.org/books/the-last-voyage-of-the-clotilda-the-true-story-of-the-last-slave-ship-voyage-1914/9781387870080

-And, of course, Ben Raines' The Last Slave Ship: https://bookshop.org/books/the-last-slave-ship-the-true-story-of-how-clotilda-was-found-her-descendants-and-an-extraordinary-reckoning-9781982136048/9781982136048

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