They gathered Saturday on the banks of the Mobile River to commemorate an utterly bleak moment, as their ancestors were delivered into slavery. They did not gather to mourn. They gathered to celebrate the legacy those ancestors built for them.

“We are the descendants of the 110, the greatest story never told – until now,” said Charmaine Anderson Taylor, one of the speakers at the Landing ceremony held Saturday by the Clotilda Descendants Association. “And we are here, and we are winning.”

Taylor traced her ancestry back to Uriba Riggins, one of the 110 African captives taken aboard the slave ship Clotilda in 1860. The Clotilda arrived in Mobile early in July of that year, and the captives who’d survived the horrific conditions of the voyage were split up and carried into slavery mostly across southwest and south-central Alabama. Freed after the Civil War, some of the survivors founded the Africatown community near Mobile, where they preserved African folkways and family history through the adversity of the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras.

“We are here and we are winning,” said Taylor. “We are lawyers, in law enforcement, military officers, doctors, dentists, pharmacists, engineers, teachers, educators, architects. We are everything she ever hoped we would be. We are the legacy bearers. We are the promise keepers. We are the storytellers. We are here. I will never forget, you will never forget and we will never let the world forget that we are.”

Taylor was one of several descendants who spoke movingly about their ancestors during the ceremony, held in the shadow of the Africatown Bridge. Amanda Taylor, another great-great granddaughter of Riggins, read a poem written to drive home the point that Riggins “had a life, a full life, back in Africa,” before being taken captive in intra-tribal warfare and sold into bondage.

“I am a young girl. I am from Africa. I am Yoruba. I am 16 years old. I have a name, though unknown to you,” Taylor read in her great-great-grandmother’s voice. “I am forced to work in the home of Timothy Meaher and Mary. I am forced to become their maid, told that I am their property. I am a human repurposed. I am given a new name. I am now Areba. I am forced to care for the Meaher family while being denied my own family. I am forced to care for their children while being denied my own childhood. But I am African. I am Yoruba. I am strong. I am proud, resilient, courageous. I am a survivor… I am your ancestor. You are my descendants. You are my destiny, my hope, my legacy.”

“I’m just one branch of a powerful tree,” said Thomas Washington, a descendant of Africatown founders Osia and Innie Keeby. “Today the Keeby family includes union leaders, entrepreneurs, mental health professionals, first responders, NYPD, New York City Fire Department, 911 dispatchers, detectives for New York City, postal workers, educators, grant writers, doctors, military service members, school principals and even superintendents. We have served this country and our community in countless ways. All rooted in the courage of one man and one woman. One woman who dared to build a future on stolen land with stolen freedom.

“And so today we don’t just remember Osia Keeby as a name in history,” continued Washington. “We live his story in our professions, in our purpose and in our pride. So to the Keeby family and all of those who carry a legacy, let us not forget our ancestors did something. They did not just survive the unimaginable. They built something that still stands. And now it is our sacred duty to ensure that it never falls.”

The culmination of the Landing ceremony is the placement of a wreath on the waters of the river. This year the wreath was placed by Jermaine Bell, a descendant of Matilda McCrear, a Clotilda survivor who died in Selma in 1940.

Another highlight of the 2025 ceremony came as a shock to the honoree: To her evident surprise, Patricia Frazier was honored with the Clotilda Descendants Association’s Legacy Award. Tiffany Pogue described Frazier as “someone whose fingerprints are all over the foundation of this organization.”

“She’s been called many things by those who know her,” said Pogue. “Kind, gracious, committed, elegant. She is a quiet force. She is a servant, leader. She never expects anything in return. She just gives. Her cousin said she’s not just one thing, she is a kaleidoscope.”

“First of all, I don’t like recognitions, as people have suggested,” said Frazier. “And then something so public makes it increasingly difficult to accept this. But I do accept this today, in the name of my mother and grandmother, because those are the ladies that made me the woman that I am today. … And I’ll end with one final phrase that my mother commonly said: ‘To whom much is given, much is required.’ And I have been given much. So thank you very much.”

The 2025 Landing ceremony was part of a larger Landing Event and Ancestor Festival (LEAF) weekend, which included a community festival and an appearance by New York Times Journalist Jamelle Bouie.