I’m super excited about attending this event! I grew up from the age of 8 years old to 16 in what is known as Africatown or Magazine Point as we called it. I was always told by my step-grandmother about the history of the area and at one point some of the ancestor’s homes were still standing. My step-grandmother Dorothy was related to Cudjo Kazoola Lewis, she mentioned him being her great-uncle I believe. Cudjo Lewis was the third to last survivor of the slave ship Clotilda which arrived in Mobile Bay in 1860. He passed on July 17, 1935, and is buried in the Old Plateau Cemetery here in Mobile, Alabama.
To walk those streets knowing we were walking in a place of history was something to really feel proud of, yet at the same time filling you with great emotion knowing what our ancestors went through.
The film has personal ties to the local landscape as Documentary filmmaker Margaret Brown (“The Order of Myths”, “The Great Invisible”) returns to her hometown of Mobile, Alabama to document the search for and historic discovery of The Clotilda, the last known ship to arrive in the United States, illegally carrying enslaved Africans. After a century of secrecy and speculation, the 2019 discovery of the ship turns attention toward the descendant community of Africatown and presents a moving portrait of a community actively grappling with and fighting to preserve their heritage while examining what justice looks like today.
A special screening of the award-winning film will be hosted in Mobile on Saturday, October 22nd at the Saenger Theater. The special screening will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.
WHERE:
6 South Joachim Street
Mobile, AL 36602
WHEN:
Saturday, October 22, 2022
7:30pm-10:00pm
