"Spirit of Our Ancestors" Celebrates the Clotilda Descendants, Africatown Founders

MOBILE, Ala. - Jan. 18, 2019 - PRLog -- The Descendants of the Clotilda extends a warm public invitation to its first annual festival, "Spirit of Our Ancestors" on Saturday, February 9th, 2019, from Noon to 4 PM at Mobile County Training School in honor of those kidnapped Africans who were the last known human cargo brought to the US.

The festival is organized around the families of Charlie Lewis, Peter Lee, Orsa Keeby, Pollee Allen, and Cudjo Lewis, who is the most famous among the Clotilda Africans. Cudjo's narrative -- as recorded in the notes of Zora Neale Hurston's interview with him 90 years ago -- was finally released last year as a book, Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo." It is the first-hand account of Oluale Kossola (Lewis' birth name) who was one of 110 people kidnapped and sold by the Kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin), then illegally brought to Mobile aboard the Clotilda. Its captain and his co-conspirators burned and sunk the ship in the Mobile River Delta.

Rapper turned actor Common has recently acquired the rights to Barracoon and plans to produce a limited television series based on the book.

While most of the attention has been focused on Cudjo's life, the other Clotilda Africans who are lesser known are just as important, said festival organizer Joycelyn Davis, a descendant of Charlie Lewis.

"When you look at the plaque outside the church founded by some of the Clotilda Africans, there are 12 names on it," Davis said. "I wanted to make sure all of the families are recognized. They founded Africatown too. Each family has its own story to tell."

The families participating in the festival invite other families who are also descendants to come forward with their stories and family heirlooms. Their African forbearers, who were split among various owners who financed the voyage to the Kingdom of Dahomey (Benin), sold up the river north of Mobile to other plantations and were not part of founding Africatown.

Dr. Natalie Robertson, the festival's keynote speaker, spent 15 years researching and writing the Clotilda story, even visiting the Benin village of slave traders who sold the 110 and millions of others in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. "My book is a vehicle for the enslaved Africans and descendants to raise their voices and be heard. That was always my goal from the beginning," she said. Her concern now is that the story is passed on to the next generation and that they benefit from their history. "This is the charge given to them by the ancestors, and so there is a spiritual responsibility to keep that history alive and preserve it."

Davis said the festival "celebrates the remarkable strength of a people, who were brought here with a different language and culture, yet built their own communities and thrived."

Festival events includes two ceremonies, "Bringing in the Elders" by Deborah Ferguson from the University of South Alabama and libations. Other activities include drumming by Wayne Curtis, a quilt display by Charlie Lewis Descendant Lorna Woods (Davis' aunt), and an African-themed fashion show by Theola Bright.

See more at https://www.facebook.com/directdescendantsAT