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KOLUMN Magazine

Matilda McCrear, Historically Black College & University, HBCU, Langston University, Black Girls Code, Diversity Equity & Inclusion, DEI, Critical Race Theory, CRT, African American News, Black News, Urban News, African American Newspaper, Black Newspaper, African American Magazine, Black Magazine, African American History, Black History, African American Wealth, Black Wealth, African American Health, Black Health, African American Economics, Black Economics, KOLUMN Magazine, KOLUMN Books, KINDR'D Magazine, Black Lives, Black Lives Matter, African American Art, Black Art, African American Politics, Black Politics, African American City, Black City, African American People, Black People, Allegory, Segregation, Racism, Reparations, 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
Matilda McCrear, Historically Black College & University, HBCU, Langston University, Black Girls Code, Diversity Equity & Inclusion, DEI, Critical Race Theory, CRT, African American News, Black News, Urban News, African American Newspaper, Black Newspaper, African American Magazine, Black Magazine, African American History, Black History, African American Wealth, Black Wealth, African American Health, Black Health, African American Economics, Black Economics, KOLUMN Magazine, KOLUMN Books, KINDR'D Magazine, Black Lives, Black Lives Matter, African American Art, Black Art, African American Politics, Black Politics, African American City, Black City, African American People, Black People, Allegory, Segregation, Racism, Reparations, 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
Photo, Courtesy of McCrear Family

REMEBERING MATILDA, THE LAST SURVIVOR OF THE TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

January 13 marks 85 years since the death of Matilda, whose name at birth was Abake – meaning ‘born to be loved by all’ among the Tarkar people of Western Africa.
On a cold December morning in 1931, a short, elderly Black woman set out on a 24km (15-mile) walk from her homestead in Alabama, United States, on a quest for justice. The long trek to the court in Selma was no small undertaking for a person in her mid-70s. But Matilda McCrear was determined to go and make her legal claim for compensation for the horrors that she and her family had been through.
Until her death 85 years ago on January 13, 1940, Matilda was the last surviving passenger on the last-ever slave ship bound from the West African coast to North America in late 1859.
Her story began many decades before and thousands of miles away from that sharecropping homestead. Originally named Abake – “born to be loved by all” – the girl later renamed Matilda by her American “owner” came into the world circa 1857, among the Tarkar people of the West African interior.
In 1859, at the age of two, little Abake was captured along with her mother (later renamed Grace), her three older sisters and some other relatives, by troops of the Kingdom of Dahomey, located in what is now Benin. Torn away from the rest of their family, they were victims of an age-old regional warfare which underpinned an equally ancient but persistent trade in slavery reaching across North and East Africa, the Ottoman Empire and eventually the Americas.

Celebrating Our Lives