Alabama Author Releases The Last Slave Ship

MOBILE, Ala. — Alabama author Ben Raines, a former AL.com journalist and a longtime environmental writer, recently released The Last Slave Ship, a book that dives into the history of the ship Clotilda and the enslaved passengers who arrived in Mobile before the Civil War following a harrowing journey to and from the African country of Dahomey (now Benin), according to AL.com. Raines also writes about his discovery of the hull of the ship during spring 2019. He has been exploring the Mobile-Tensaw Delta for 23 years and utilized his familiarity of the region to pinpoint the area where the ship was sunk. Raines is currently raising funds in an effort to buy 1,800 books for the students in the middle school and two high schools near Africatown, Alabama, the town founded by the Africans who were smuggled into the country in the hold of the Clotilda. “They deserve a chance to grow up knowing the full and triumphant story of the people who founded their town, to know who their ancestors were,” Raines said on his fundraising page.