The last enslaved Africans to be illegally transported to America arrived in Mobile, Alabama in 1859 on the Clotilda.
Many of the Clotilda survivors were sent to the same plantations. They were very protective of one another.
One day an overseer went to whip one of the survivors. She screamed, signaling for her community to drop whatever they were doing.
They chased the overseer, beating him to a pulp. A sign to everyone that they weren’t to be messed with.
After emancipation the Clotilda survivors longed to return to Africa but it became clear that was an impossibility. But they persisted.
Working tirelessly they co-founded what became known as Africatown, three miles from Mobile. And in doing so expanded our understanding of ancestral land.
Alabama’s soil is powerful. Sacred. Steeped with our ancestors' prayers, sweat, blood, and resistance. It’s no coincidence that Alabama continues to be a site of Black resistance.
Black unity seen at the Alabama Riverfront Brawl was more than powerful. It was ancestral.
Resistance runs through our veins and in all land our ancestors have inhabited. We are always stronger together.