Cudjoe Kazoola Lewis was the last known surviving African slave to have been forcibly transported across the Atlantic to America. He was bought in 1860 for just $50 in what was then the West African kingdom of Dahomey - now the Republic of Benin - and brought to the port of Mobile aboard the slave-ship Clotilde. He was freed at the end of the Civil War and elected to remain in Alabama. He died in 1935 in what is now the suburban Mobile neighborhood of Prichard, aged about 94.
Zora Neale Hurston, interviewed him several times before his death. She also recorded short movie footage of him - which is the only existing moving footage that exist of a slave brought directly from African soil during the transatlantic slave trade.
oh…. Kazoola was his African name (native name from takon, Benin republic…not to be confused with Benin Kingdom in Nigeria), before they renamed him Cudjoe Lewis….(you know tobey/kuntakinte ish).
(via rickehh)
