Descendants of Africans on slave ship on reconciliation with family of Alabama enslaver

in 2019 we began reporting on the discovery of the clotilda a sunken slave ship found in the bottom of an Alabama River the clotilda was The Last Ship known to have brought captured Africans to America in 1860 what happened to the 110 men women and children on board is well documented and their stories have been passed down through generations by their descendants some of whom still live just a few miles from where the ship was found in a community called africat town the story will continue in a moment for 160 years this muddy stretch of the Mobile River covered up a crime in July 1860 the clotilda was towed here after a 45-day voyage from West Africa with 110 enslaved people on board I just imagine myself being on that ship just listening to the waves and the waters and just not knowing where you were going joyn Davis lorale woods and Thomas Griffin are direct descendants of this African man oluale once enslaved his owner changed his name to Charlie Lewis this image is from around 1900 poly Allen whose African name was Capo seen in this 100-year-old sketch was the ancestor of Jeremy Ellis and Darren Patterson no clothes eating where they defecated only allowed out of the cargo hole for one day a week for 2 months how many people do do we know now that could have survived something like that without losing their mind there are no photographs of Pat Frasier's great great grandmother lah Dennison but capria Wallace and her mother Cassandra have a surprising number of pictures of their ancestor kazula whose enslaver called him Kujo Lewis growing up my mom made sure she told me all the stories that her dad told her about kjo Cassandra that was important to you very important to pass that knowledge along my dad set us down and he would make us repeat Kulu uh clda kolu the story of the clotilda began when Timothy mayor a wealthy businessman hired Captain William Foster to illegally smuggle a shipload of captive Africans from the kingdom of Dome Modern Day Benin to Mobile when they arrived mayor divided them up between himself his brother Burns and several others Captain Foster claimed he burned and sank the clotilda but exactly where remained a mystery until 2018 that's when a local reporter Ben Reigns found the clotilda in about 20 ft of water next to land still owned by the mayor family and this was the key to finding the ship Reigns had been searching for 7even months following clues in Captain Foster's Journal which is in Mobile's Public Library so we're almost over now yeah we're coming right up on it we visited the wreck with Maritime archaeologist James Delgado in 2020 on good to drop the water is so muddy the only way to see the ship is with a sonar device wow you can see it totally clearly that's the ship yes that's clld this is the bow here just a few feet from the surface and both sides of the hull clotilda is 86 ft long but the back of it the stern is buried deep in mud you can nothing nothing we Dove on the wreck but there's zero visibility underwater this wooden plank was all our camera could pick up two years later James Delgado and his team including diver Jay hegler returned to the wck to properly explore the site they carefully removed 98 pieces of the clotilda for examination this is a very good find this is off of the stern including this part of the steering system most remarkable of all they found for the first time ever according to Delgado the intact cargo hold of a slave ship and it was smaller than they'd previously thought but the only way to get all those people in as was to literally put these posts in and lay these platforms as they called them out a foot and a half apart and literally cram people in Delgado helped us create this animation that shows the post they found still upright in the cargo hold and the wooden platforms where the 110 captives had been forced to lie crowded together shoulder toosh shoulder stacked on top of each other in near total darkness for the 45-day voyage the British had developed a rule on how to do this so it was a foot and a half by five feet for a man foot and four Ines for a woman and a foot for a child a child would get one foot of body space and when you use that very bureaucratic cruel evil math you could cram the 110 people in there in horrific conditions Jay hegler had dived on slave ships before but never inside a cargo hole once I got down there there was a calmness that was around it really kind of washed over me and then I really felt the presence of the 110 ancestors I was a different person that came out of that cargo hole than it was when I went in you really feel that oh absolutely absolutely it it was a spiritual experience some of the ship's pieces delgado's team retrieved are now on display in a new Museum called africat Town Heritage House which opened in July just a few miles away from the wreck africat town was founded around 1868 3 years after emancipation by 30 of the Africans from the clotilda it is the only Survivor community in America founded by Africans and some of their descendants still call it home who lives here now um family members cousins joyn Davis took us to the street her great great great grandfather Charlie Lewis lived on it's still called Lewis quarters so pretty much everyone on this street can can trace their lineage back to Charlie everyone here is related wow yeah in an interview published in 1914 Kujo Lewis said when he and the other clotilda surviv iors were freed after 5 years of enslavement he asked Timothy mayor to help them return to Africa but mayor refused mayor also tried to prevent them from voting and some found work in a sawmill mayor owned I mean they work for like a dollar a day until they saved up their money to buy land this rare film from 1928 shows Kujo Lewis in his 80s when he was one of the clotilda last living survivors he help found this church in Africa town the same Church many of The clotilda Descendants still attend today after emancipation it seems so unlikely that a group of freed slaves could pull their resources and build a community I mean that's an extraordinary thing there's this thing we say about making a way out of no way Mary Elliot is a curator at the smithsonian's national museum of African-American history and culture in Washington DC when these folks were forced over here from the continent of Africa they didn't come with empty heads they came with empty hands so they found a way to make a way and they were resilient Africa town was once a Vibrant Community there were blackowned businesses the first black school in Mobile and by the 1960s 12,000 people lived here but those blackowned businesses are gone an interstate highway was built through the middle of Africa town in the early 1990s and there are only about 800 residents remaining living in small clusters of homes surrounded by factories and chemical plants no matter where you go in africat town you can hear factories and Industry and the highway there is this constant Buzz it's a buzz you hear all the time day and night and it's a constant reminder of the breakup of this community since the clotilda discovery some $10 million in city state federal and philanthropic funds have gone into the revitalization of africat town but the descendants of Timothy mayor the slave owner who bankrolled the clotilda refused to meet the mayor family still owns about 14% of the land in historic Africa town and their property markers are hard to miss there's even streets nearby named after Timothy mayor court filings from 2012 indicate the mayor's real estate and Timber business is worth an estimated $36 million when we first visited in 2020 the Mayors weren't talking to us or The clotilda Descendants I don't think it's something that people want to remember because they have knowledge that they benefit from it today that they benefited that's it that they benefited that's how part of that wealth was derived and that on the backs of those people what would you want to say to them I mean if if they were willing to sit down and have you know have a coffee with we would first need to acknowledge what was done the past and then there's an accountability piece that your family for for this many years 5 years owned my ancestors and then the third piece would be how do we partner together with an Afric town this past July descendants of Timothy mayor agreed to a historic meeting with The clutia Descendants we'll show you how that went when we come back for years descendants of the enslaved Africans brought to Alabama on the clotilda have been trying to meet with the descendants of Timothy mayor the man responsible for bringing their ancestors here in 1860 last year a new generation took control of the mayor family business and began to explore reconciliation a few months ago we witnessed a sitdown between the modern-day Mayors and the relatives of the men and women their ancestor Enslaved the story will continue in a moment the meeting took place in a conference room in Mobile's History Museum this past July I previously thought that this day would never happen ladies because people kept saying the Mayors have kept quiet you know we've tried to approach them they've only spoken through their lawyers Pat Frasier was representing The clotilda Descendants Association Along with joyn Davis and its president Jeremy Ellis My Hope Is that this can be an example of what reconciliation looks like for the nation as well as start the healing process for a number of descendants everybody has this perception that you know maybe we're angry are you angry at the mayor's I'm not angry at the Mayors I'm just angry at the fact that it took so long to speak out we were silent for far too long and we were distant for far too long and we're very happy to be able to finally break the silence and to narrow the distance that's Meg mayor great great granddaughter of Timothy mayor she's an accountant who now oversees the family's business Holdings and property along with her sister Helen an attorney and I know that there's no words that I can say that out of quately address the horrors that your ancestors endured as a direct result of the actions by my ancestor Timothy mayor you know we can offer this generation's heartfelt apology but it's easy to say things we're going to start doing things can you talk a little bit about why you were silent or why the family was yeah so our family um is a it's like some other families we have lots of layers and complexities and you know some dysfunctions and we have been in a like a lawsuit like among family members and that finally resolved just a year ago so like now it's you know really it's our generation that's been able to like step up what does reconciliation look like for you well I told this to Anderson yesterday I hope he comes back in 10 years and africat town is a thriving place and that we've been able to play a part and helping that that transformation and I think about building relationships and and seeing what ways you know we can get back Helen grew up just a few miles from Africa town but had never been there until last year when she started volunteering at a food bank as a first step to make amends in 2021 Helen and Meg sold this plot of land in africat town to the city of mobile for $50,000 a fraction of its appraise value it'll be home to community development organizations and a new food bank mag and Helen still own about 14% of the land in historic Africa town we have some ask some specific as that we would like to see accomplished you're talking about plots of land we believe that within that historic district of africat town there are Parcels of land that we should have ownership in a land a land trust a land trust and that that land would then be leased out for a business wouldn't it be great if a company like Walmart could partner with descendants and Lease out land from from descendants if there is a trust and there's land and people can have services that they don't currently have today you couldn't get you know a loaf of bread without having to drive miles away the street lights are so poor the road Foods is so bad the dilapidated housing is is so terrible or maybe there can be educational trust funds that somebody would go to college and not be saddled with student loans I have a daughter and I believe that she should have the same level of Education that the M family experienced but we believe that the same level of Education should be provided to all descendants a lot of focus as it should be is on africat town but as the president of the organization I have to be intentional about those other survivors that maybe didn't grow up in africat town but they still were impacted by this story so you're talking about 110 people on the clotilda right their descendants probably number in the thousands right how is it possible for these these two people to make it right for thousands of people we've never asked that there are a number of conspirators who played a role you have to take a bite by bite but if you have an honest conversation at least we know what the parameters are to work within do you think they bear responsibility for the actions of Timothy mayor and subsequent Generations so I feel like they can't be responsible for what their forefathers did however I want them to recognize how that behavior benefited them and work to the disadvantage of us just like they've had multiple generations of wealth the original slaves and their descendants haven't the inability to purchase lands couldn't build on anything and intergenerational wealth passed down to real estate none of that none of that are there part of land in africat town that you all are financially dependent on that you're making money from I think I'd had to review that better since like I have just taken on this new role and so there's still so much that I'm learning we're still keeping an open mind and you know working on you know figuring out next steps and I'm not shutting a door on anything you said you don't hold Helen and Meg responsible but you are asking them to pay reparations it's reconciliation I I've never used the word reparation I'm asking for land that's I'm asking for land that's undeveloped that's been undeveloped for decades what is the difference between reconciliation reparations I think reparations encompasses a lot more um I think it's more than just land I think that when we talk about reparations we need to talk about the mental health aspect of things and the mental trag uh uh that folks have endured what do you say to somebody's watching this who's white and thinks this is scary MH that I can be held financially liable for something a great great great grandparent did that I didn't even know about or or I just learned about our actions can show them that it's something that can be done and this is what reconciliation and healing looks like for those that have been impacted through generations right so not all of the conversation was about land or possible scholarships for Descendants children joyn Davis wanted the Mayors to remove their property markers in Africa Town how would you feel if you were going into a neighborhood and you saw the enslaver name on almost every corner that you passed you know it's like a constant reminder reminder reminder I mean I would I I would hate it you know it's like a h you know it's like oh wow is it a h or a are you eing kidding me both it's it's a little of both we can work to remove those monuments I mean I know that's a small step but that it's not something you have to see every day and so that's the first step that we can take I can't change the street signs cuz that's the city The Descendants also wanted to know about any artifacts that might have belong to their ancestors or from the clotilda that were kept or Hidden Away by past generations of mayors are there artifacts that you have yeah we do not have any artifacts that I'm aware of we've looked very hard I can't believe that there aren't family relics but I just want to think that people preserve things of some significance and that would be important to you absolutely a lot of people are trying to learn about their ancestors well I can tell you we're continuing to look as we go through stuff are one of the few artifacts they found so far is this cane which belonged to Timothy mayor's brother Burns mayor the man who enslaved Pat Frasier's great great grandmother lah Dennison Pat is this something you want to see I want to see it so this is the cane that belonged to the man who purchased your grand exactly thank you I'm sure what's it like to touch something like that well it makes me sad because it just really makes you remember the hardship I can hear the sadness yeah I'm very sad about it the meeting lasted about 2 hours and though no Financial commitments were made the Mayors have begun removing their property markers and are donating more land around the food bank in addition to the Descendants the mayor say they're Consulting with financial planners and other community development organizations in Africa town to weigh their next steps what are your biggest concerns like what are the calculations you're making we don't want to generate conflict because we do know that there are different organizations so that's my biggest concern is how do we not cause conflict working with everyone no I totally understand they've come to the table trying to do the right thing and they want to be intentional with the decisions that are made so I totally understand that perspective I mean I think some of it is just like red tape I mean it's if we have to like do a transfer of property you just want to I guess ensure that you know everything's being done correctly and this is going to take some time because it's the right thing to do and I agree that it's it's not easy work even the ask is isn't easy right that's not an easy thing to do in your dream Africa town would become a thriving Community yes again abely again do you think these conversations need to be had Across the Nation yes absolutely make no mistake about it absolutely absolutely and that's something that we failed to do in this country and there is some misconception on the part I think of a lot of people that those are just some greedy ancestors that are trying to get some handouts they want some more handouts let let me be very clear also we did not come to the table saying we want all everything we were very in intentional about what those ads were and so we're just coming to the table reasonably respectfully and authentic

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 691,959

Keywords: 60 Minutes, CBS News, alabama, history, clotilda, cbs news, 60 minutes

Id: x4BWi5JuuRg

Length: 22min 20sec (1340 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 21 2023