When the remains of the Clotilda — last slave ship to bring Africans to the U.S. — were discovered in Mobile, Alabama in March 2019, the discovery gave hope to the cause of reparations for African Americans.
Alabama steamship owner Timothy Meaher financed the Clotilda and emerged out of the Civil War a wealthy man, AP reported. His descendants own land worth millions of dollars and still belong to high-income Mobile society. Meaher’s slaves, on the other hand, emerged from the Civil War with their freedom, but little more. Their occupations on census forms were listed as laborers, farmers and housewives with nothing of value. Many of the slaves’ descendants have working-class jobs today.
“Now, the history of Meaher and the slave ship Clotilda may offer one of the more clear-cut cases for slavery reparations, with identifiable perpetrators and victims,” AP reported.
