Dozens of people gathered in Mobile’s Africatown community for the second annual Spirit of Our Ancestors Festival, a two-day program commemorating the history of the Clotilda, the final slave ship to reach the United States. The event opened with a traditional African drumming ceremony designed to raise awareness of the community’s rich history and ensure it is not forgotten.
Descendants of the Clotilda’s captive African passengers took part in the program, describing themselves as the living embodiment of their ancestors’ dreams. Verndetta Keeby, a descendant of the ship’s survivors, said the history carries deep personal weight. “Because of what our ancestors went through, that history is important to me,” she said.
A push to make Africatown a destination
Organizers used the festival to renew their call for Africatown to be developed into a major tourist and history destination. Darron Patterson, president of the Clotilda Descendents Association, said the community’s story deserves a wide audience. “They need to know the story. If they know the story, I think they would enjoy what a wonderful story this is,” Patterson said. “It started out to be something sinister, but look what it’s turned out to be.”
Then-U.S. Senator Doug Jones of Alabama also addressed the gathering, urging that whatever improvements come to the neighborhood, the funds raised through the effort should remain in Africatown itself. “It can be done if people pull together and realize the importance of this,” Jones said. “This is the place where tragedy turned to triumph.”
The Clotilda was the last known vessel to bring enslaved Africans to the United States, arriving in Mobile in 1860 decades after the international slave trade was outlawed. Its survivors founded the Africatown community north of downtown Mobile after emancipation, and the ship’s wreck was confirmed in the Mobile River in 2019, energizing preservation and heritage efforts across the community.
Organizers said they hope events like the festival continue to raise the profile of the historic neighborhood and its role in American history.