where we are and "why we are here"

“"Mobile is a port city that has always been a polyglot society..."

- quote seen at the Mobile Museum of Art 

Over the Thanksgiving Break, my husband and I visited the Mobile Museum of Art. There, we saw a photography exhibition titled “Why We Are Here: Mobile and the Spirit of a Southern City.” The project, which runs through Jan. 6, unveils the obvious and not so obvious social connections between Gulf Coast residents as revealed by E.O. Wilson, the famous evolutionary biologist and Gulf Coast native, and Alex Harris, photographer and teacher. The exhibit includes a photograph of African American church-goers holding their hands in prayer, another of Hindu worshippers praying in a similar manner. Along with showing such similarities between different people, the show was a  reminder  of the degree to which the sea and port cities  figure into the history of African Americans. Even though Sidney Mintz tells us that  Santo Domingo had been a European colony for 120 years and sugar had been shipped from the Hispanic Caribbean for more than a century before the first African slaves were brought to Jamestown in 1619, using Jamestown as a stating point, what all can be learned about the sea, southern, economic and social history through the lives of African Americans, particularly those residing or working in port cities?