The Story of the Clotilda 110

"Never let the world forget!"

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News Coverage

WKRG News 5

2025 Clotilda Descendants Association sets Landing Event & Ancestor Festival

June 23, 2025

NBC News 15

 

Clotilda Descendants Association hosts annual Landing Event & Ancestor Festival July 3-6

July 3, 2025

AP News

 

In photos, the remaining descendants of the last known slave ship hold memorial ceremony

July 5, 2025

Fox 10

Clotilda Descendants kick off four-day weekend for annual LEAF Festival

 

July 3, 2025

NBC News 15

 

As we celebrate independence, descendants of slave ship Clotilda recall a darker chapter

July 4, 2025

Resources

The Last Slave Ship book cover — Ben Raines (cover of the Clotilda books and resources page)

By Ben Raines, the journalist who located the Clotilda wreck in 2019. A first-person account of the discovery interwoven with the history of the ship, the captives, and the descendants who kept the story alive.

Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo — Zora Neale Hurston book cover

Zora Neale Hurston's 1931 interviews with Cudjoe Lewis, the last known Clotilda survivor. Suppressed for nearly 90 years and finally published in 2018 — a primary source unlike any other.

Historic Sketches of the South — Emma Langdon Roche book cover

Published in 1914, this is one of the earliest accounts of the Clotilda survivors written from interviews with the community. A foundational primary source for everything that came after.

The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Making of AfricaTown, USA — Natalie S. Robertson book cover

A scholarly history connecting the Clotilda captives' West African origins to the community they founded in Mobile. Robertson traces the cultural threads — language, religion, kinship — that survived the Middle Passage.

Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda — Sylviane A. Diouf book cover

A definitive scholarly account by historian Sylviane Diouf. Often recommended as the best single-volume introduction to the Clotilda story.

African Town — Charles Waters and Irene Latham book cover

A novel in verse for middle-grade readers, told from multiple Clotilda survivors' perspectives. Widely adopted in middle-school curricula.

Africatown: America's Last Slave Ship and the Community It Created — Nick Tabor book cover

A modern history of the community itself — from its founding through industrial encroachment, environmental crises, and the ongoing fight for preservation.

Clotilda: The History and Archaeology of the Last Slave Ship — James P. Delgado book cover

By the maritime archaeologist who led the formal underwater investigation. The most detailed account of the wreck itself, what it confirmed, and what we now know about the ship.

The Survivors of the Clotilda — Hannah Durkin book cover

The newest major work on the topic. Durkin reconstructs the lives of the 110 captives in unprecedented detail — names, kinships, what happened to them after Emancipation.

Don't Miss the 2026 L.E.A.F. Festival

From July 9–12, Africatown will welcome visitors for four unforgettable days of cultural events, historical commemorations, family activities, live entertainment, and community engagement.

View the complete schedule, event locations, and participation opportunities today.