A short documentary telling the story of the Clotilda, the last known ship to bring enslaved Africans to the United States, made its public debut last week at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, drawing descendants of the ship’s survivors to the premiere and marking a new chapter in Mobile’s push to build out heritage tourism around Africatown.
The 24-minute film, titled “Surviving Clotilda,” was produced by SCAD students as part of a $180,000 performance contract between the City of Mobile and the art school’s partnership with Visit Mobile. Descendants of the 110 Africans who were smuggled into Mobile Bay aboard the Clotilda in 1860 traveled to Savannah for the screening and took part in a panel discussion afterward.
“I don’t want people to forget the story of 110,” said Darron Patterson, president of the Clotilda Descendants Association, who attended the premiere. Patterson said the film centers the voices of the people who would go on to found Africatown after slavery ended, rather than treating them as a footnote to the ship’s history. “They were the stars of the show,” he said. “I’m just proud to be a part of it. The descendants are excited about what’s happening.”
Interest in the Clotilda and the community its survivors built has grown sharply since the wreckage of the ship was located in the Mobile River near Twelvemile Island, confirming decades of oral history passed down through Africatown families. That discovery has pushed city and tourism officials to invest more heavily in preserving and presenting the neighborhood’s history to visitors.
Of the $180,000 the city committed to the SCAD project, $75,000 went toward producing the documentary itself, while the remaining $105,000 is split between wayfinding and signage for an Africatown heritage experience and further development of the concept behind that experience.
Patterson said SCAD students spent time in Mobile before production began, sitting down with descendants to hear stories that had been passed through their families for generations. “They did a lot of listening to descendants,” he said. “They captured the essence of what this story is.”
Visit Mobile President and CEO David Clark traveled to Savannah for the premiere along with Patterson and other descendants. A panel discussion following the screening included Patterson, Visit Mobile’s Emily Gonzalez, SCAD’s Jennifer Hyde and Rachel Thomas, who narrates the film.
“SCAD pulled out the red carpet for its partners,” Clark said. “A lot of work went into this and I’m proud of all of Mobile and Africatown for coming together. I’m grateful to the city for giving us the resources to do it and I’m grateful for the Africatown leadership who drove this process.”
Clark said the documentary is intended to anchor a new land-and-water tour for visitors to Mobile. Under the plan, tourists would first watch the film at the GulfQuest National Maritime Museum of the Gulf of Mexico before boarding a boat that would take them out on the water near the site where the Clotilda’s remains were discovered, with guides recounting the history of the ship and the 110 survivors along the way.
The tour is expected to launch alongside the opening of Mobile County’s Heritage House Museum, which is slated to open in March. Together, the film, the museum and the water tour are meant to give visitors a fuller picture of Africatown’s origins and its place in the region’s history, while giving the community more direct involvement in how that story is told.
For descendants like Patterson, the project represents a chance to make sure the story reaches a wider audience on their own terms. “I don’t want people to forget the story of 110,” he said, “and I don’t want the world to forget about the place where they settled after slavery was ended.”